


No Cookies For You!

by jolly_love



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, But also other problems, Established Relationship, Good Draco Malfoy, Grimmauld Place is a Meeting Place for Slytherins, Harry hosts Slytherins, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Humor, LGBTQ problems, Multi, Non-Canon Relationship, Problems, Relationship Problems, Ron Weasley Bashing, Secret Relationship, basically every relationship in here is non canon (be prepared), more tags will follow, wait: except for Angelina and George
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-07-29 07:01:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20078089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolly_love/pseuds/jolly_love
Summary: Harry finally decides to tell his best friends about his secret relationship with Draco. Things don't go as well as he had wanted it to go. Not that this would destroy his relationship. However, it may destroy (or build up) the people around them. After all, the Slytherins already decided to accept Grimmauld Place as their headquarter where they can stay when the world seems against them.Follow Draco and Harry through a few months where they have to navigate not ony through their own personal problems, but also help their friends navigate through theirs. With a lot of humor everything can be done, right?*NEW ENDING ADDED - thank you Neakco for allowing me to use your awesome idea :) *





	1. Chapter 1

“Damn it, Malfoy! Did you steal the chocolate I had on the table?”

Harry rolled his eyes and sighed as he opened another cupboard in the kitchen to check for some more chocolate. It wouldn’t have surprised him if the chocolate Draco ate was actually the last one in existence.

The person in question appeared at the door frame, not even looking slightly guilty, simply smirked at him. He was already dress to impress: white button up shirt and dark blue, almost black trousers. His hair was pulled back, though not as strictly as in his youth and the first two buttons of his shirt were open. He looked still incredibly good, but not as imposing and strict.

“Good morning to you as well, _Potter_.”

Harry simply rolled his eyes, checked the clock on the wall and continued rummaging through the cupboard. It was almost eleven and the cookies should have been done, so they could be thrown into the oven any second now. Otherwise, he had to leave his guests alone in the middle to take them out. And he didn’t really trust that Hermione, Ginny and especially Ron could keep themselves from tearing Draco into pieces if they were left alone. He was after all telling them that they were in a relationship – for almost two and a half years now.

Suddenly, he felt two strong arms around his waist and shivered. He turned to look at Draco who smirked at him. “Yes, love, I ate the chocolate.”

“That was for the cookies, Dray.” Harry sighed, but let himself get drawn into a kiss. Draco grinned and grabbed the coffee, while he sat down at the table, already pulling the bowl with cookie dough closer.

Harry shook his head and accio’d it into his hands. “No cookies for you, if you keep stealing my ingredients. I can’t find more chocolate, so I need to take one from your cupboard.”

He placed the bowl on the kitchen counter, crossed the kitchen and stood in front of Draco’s personal stock, when the Slytherin laughed and shook his head. “Harry, why do you think I ate the chocolate on the table? I don’t have any left.”

Harry sighed, opened the cupboard nonetheless – he had learnt to not always trust his personal Slytherin - but he was right. The entire cupboard was empty.

“You shouldn’t have let the chocolate on the table while taking a shower. Everyone knows not to keep sweets lying around” Draco smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

“People with children don’t do that. I thought you were adult enough to know when something’s allowed to get eaten. And I do remember telling you that the chocolate on the counter was for the cookies!”

The Slytherin emptied the cup of coffee and walked over to the sink. “Well, you shouldn’t have told me that there was chocolate in the kitchen! You know I can’t resist it!”

Harry chuckled and closed the cupboard again. He couldn’t be mad at Draco. Yes, he probably shouldn’t have told him, that there was chocolate in the kitchen, but he wanted to tease him. And he also wanted to know what he would do when he knew there was something delicious laying around. When he turned around, he saw Draco stealing even more cookie dough.

“Haven’t you learnt not to eat raw cookie dough, love?”

Draco smirked when he looked up, grabbed another handful of dough and popped it into his mouth, while Harry shook his head. He was just waiting for Harry to do something against him. The answer then actually came from someone else at the entrance of the kitchen.

“Draco has always eaten cookie dough, Potter. Shouldn’t you know that by now?”

Harry turned to face Pansy and shrugged his shoulders. He was just about to say something to Draco, when he turned to the witch again. She was looking rather good in her crop top and short red mini skirt. She was also rocking those black knee-high boots and her messy ponytail with silvery gemstones made her look complete. Next to some black necklaces and bracelets, of course.

Pansy seemed to notice his attention and smirked at him. “Shouldn’t you be looking at your _fiancé_ like that?”

“Unbelievable, Pansy! Are you actually here to flirt even more with Ginny? Don’t you have enough possibilities for that when you’re interviewing her for the Prophet? And aren’t you interviewing her almost every other week?” Harry couldn’t stop himself from grinning. Of course she was here. Draco must have told her that Hermione, Ron and Ginny were coming over and she had probably decided to be there as well.

Pansy laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “What do you want, Harry?! Eyes on the prize, you know? If I want Ginny to notice me, I need to be everywhere she is.”

“Her team’s playing in Russia in two weeks.”

“And I already got my tickets.”

Harry couldn’t help himself but laugh. Pansy was apparently ready for anything. He turned to face Draco again, who looked into the bowl of cookie dough and blushed suddenly. Nodding to himself, Harry realized his mistake. He hadn’t taken away the cookie dough completely and Draco had probably eaten it all. How he wasn’t about to throw up was beyond him.

As if Draco noticed Harry looking at him, he raised his head and smiled at him. Probably to try and convince him that whatever he had done, wasn’t that bad.

“How did I end up with two Slytherin’s in my house? And both of them are troublemakers?” he asked himself loudly. He had definitely nothing against it – usually. But right now with his friends on the horizon, he would have loved to have a normal household.

Draco grinned and put the now empty bowl next to the sink, while Pansy only laughed.

“There are actually three Slytherins here.” Blaise looked into the kitchen behind Pansy and smirked. “And we all know you’re a secret Slytherin. So in reality, there are four Slytherins here.”

Harry frowned. “And why exactly are you here? Everyone knows Draco lives here, so I know why he’s here. Pansy’s here for Ginny and you?”  
Blaise walked into the kitchen and grabbed a cup of coffee, still grinning. “I’m just here for the action.”

“There is no action happening! I’m just telling my friends that I’m…”

“_Marrying_ Draco Malfoy. Are you sure there’s no action happening?” Blaise smirked and Harry rolled his eyes.

It was really weird how he was already such good friends with Draco’s friends, but his own had no clue that he was even dating someone. Let alone Draco freaking Malfoy.

It wasn’t that he wanted to keep it secret, but the first time he had seen Draco since the eighth year at Hogwarts, he had been in a bar with Ron and some other Aurors in training and they had seen him. It had been about three or four years after Hogwarts. He had looked absolutely amazing and handsome. His blue suit was in perfect contrast to his almost white hair.

Most of the people Harry was with had laughed at the Slytherin and spoken bad things, but once they had left, he had decided to go and talk to him and things just kind of happened. In no time, both of them were boyfriends and four months after they had met, Harry got introduced to Draco’s friends and his mother.

The introduction had been extremely uncomfortable and awkward (both times), until Harry decided to mention that the Sorting Hat had almost put him into Slytherin. Things only went up from then on and six months after that they were living together.

Two weeks ago, Draco had popped the question and Harry had without even second guessing accepted Draco’s proposal. Now was the hard part: Finally introducing his _fiancé_ to his friends.

And yes, Grimmauld Place had become something of a Slytherin hangout spot. Whenever someone had a problem, they were always welcomed here and even if Draco was gone, Harry was there to listen to everyone. Blaise and Pansy were here the most, next to Gregory and Theo.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes, finally coming back to reality. “I wish there was no action happening. But if you all decide to stay, there is definitely something happening.”

“I’m always hoping for _something_!” Pansy grinned and wriggled her eyebrows.

Deciding to ignore her comment, Harry just continued to speak. “You do realize that Ron is an Auror, right? He could hex you rather quickly.”

Blaise laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “You are an Auror as well. I’m sure you’d protect your boyfriend’s best friends.”

“If you keep talking like that I might consider not intervening.”

Draco laughed and jumped out of Blaise’s reach, since he started to charge at him. Pansy on the other hand seemed to finally decide to make herself useful. She conjured some freshly baked cookies as well as a chocolate cake and some sandwiches.

“Now, can we all be happy? I don’t want there to be a commotion when Ginny walks in!”

Blaise burst out laughing. “Why? Does she hate commotion?” He winked at her and Pansy shot a stinging hex across the room.

Since the Slytherin, who was intended for that hex, was hiding behind Draco again, said Slytherin jumped out of the way and accidentally knocked over the table with all the conjured food on top. Blaise got hit with the stinging hex and yelped, but Pansy had already forgotten all about what he had said and stared at the mess on the floor.

Harry shook his head, a hand placed on his face and sighed. He accio’d all the wands in the room, not willing to let them fight over something like that, but they were all rather skilled in wandless magic. So, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

However, rather than throwing magic around, Pansy grabbed a handful of the chocolate cake and threw it at Draco’s white shirt. Harry crossed his arms, leaned at the kitchen counter and shook his head once more. Unbelievable! His friends were coming over in a little more than an hour and all the Slytherins in his house wanted to do was having a food fight?

Well, conjured food wasn’t really that good anyway, so he didn’t really care about it. He just thought it was funny, since before he had met them, he had always thought of Slytherins as well behaved wizards and witches. And now, ever since he had become friends with them, they just seemed to be adult children.

“What is going on here?”

Harry winced and turned to the entrance where Ron was standing and looking into the kitchen. Everyone was suddenly frozen in the middle of their action. And the picture he was faced with was definitely a weird one. Draco with a white shirt, full of brown chocolate cake (that looked like someone had sat on him and pooped on him), Pansy was wearing some of the sandwiches’ content on her clothes and skin and Blaise with cookies and cake pieces in his brown hair and dark face. Next to all of that was Harry with three wands that didn’t belong to him, simply watching what was happening right in front of him.

There was a moment of stunned silence, in which Hermione and Ginny appeared next to Ron and the Slytherins suddenly realized what was happening. All of them threw some cleaning charms around and Harry nudged his friends out of the kitchen and towards the living room.

“I thought you wouldn’t be here until half past twelve!”

He looked at all of them and saw them all in a different state. Ron was quite clearly in shock, Hermione smiled at him and Ginny kept looking towards the kitchen, quite obviously trying to see something. Harry had a feeling that maybe she liked Pansy just as much as she liked her.

“Harry, why is there a Slytherin… no, _three_ Slytherins in your kitchen and why do you not seem surprised that they’re there?!” Ron asked and frowned at him.

Sighing, Harry sat down on the sofa and shrugged his shoulders. “Because that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You wanted to talk to us about three Slytherins in your kitchen, throwing food around?” Ginny smirked and crossed her legs as she sat down on the opposite side of the small table in the middle.

“It’s Malfoy! Why is he here?!” Ron asked again, with a slightly poisonous voice.

Harry sighed again and rolled his eyes. “Because, Ron: He lives here.”

Everyone was quiet and Ron shook his head again. “Why would you allow him to live here? It’s Grimmauld Place! Your house! No Slytherin has even been inside here!”

“Actually, Snape was here already, don’t you remember?” Harry grinned and sighed then. "And I don't have to remind you that the Blacks are actually more Slytherin than Gryffindor."

“But it’s a Gryffindor home! Everywhere is Gryffindor decora…” Ron suddenly looked around and saw more Slytherin colors in the living room than the typical red-gold.

The couch they were sitting on, which Harry usually disguised into a couch stripped with the Gryffindor color, was now an almost dirty, green-black and the white carpet had a glint of light green inside. The walls were brown with a hint of moss-green. Not that Harry cared about all the green, since Draco had a very good eye and he kept things light with other colors, but it was noticeable that a Slytherin lived here.

“Oh no! They got to you!”

Harry snorted and shook his head. “Well, Ron. That happens if you let a Slytherin buy furniture and decorate. And no, he didn’t get to me. We’re dating.”

This must have floored him, as his best friend simply stared at him and back to the kitchen. Hermione on the other hand grinned knowingly.

“I thought you might have found someone!”

Harry chuckled. “And what gave it away? My constant excuses not to go on dates, the unhappy state I was in when someone forced me to meet new potential boyfriends or my straight out refusal to be set up with someone?”

His best friend smirked and shook her head. “Your happiness.”

“Happiness?!” Ron basically screamed and looked at his girlfriend as if she had been crazy.

Harry could see Blaise standing in the corner, smirking at him and he shook his head for a second. He had been right, apparently. Too much action in this house. No one else had seen the Slytherin in the corner, and Ron kept talking.

“He’s _Malfoy_! How can you think that Harry would be happy with _that_?!”

Before he could say anything and defend his fiancé, said man walked in with a tray of cookies. And they didn’t seem conjured, which made Harry suspicious and he huffed shortly. He was wearing another shirt, this time it was slightly pink and Harry knew that this happend when Teddy was helping Draco with the washing and the small child snuck his favorite red teddy bear inside, which colored everything from deep red to slightly pinkish. Teddy had felt really bad but Draco had been wearing those clothes more than the rest, since it had a good memory accompanying. Harry never knew if he should love him for it even more or if he should think that it was so damn cute! Right now, Harry knew that this shirt gave him something to smile over.

“That might be, because your Savior might actually like _that_” his fiancé said, sitting down next to Harry and putting an arm around him, while the cookies floated onto the table.

Harry caught Ginny looking at the door, where Pansy just emerged and they smiled at each other. He could actually see that both girls seemed to gravitate towards each other. Even if Pansy wasn’t trying so hard to be wherever Ginny would be, they would keep meeting. And he was sure that at the latest in one year maybe, these two would finally have to courage to be together.

Right now, he had other problems. Namely, Ron. Hermione already seemed to accept that it was Draco, who made him so happy. Ron on the other hand… he needed a little bit more convincing.

“Don’t you remember what he did to us all the time?!” he asked and frowned at Draco, who rolled his eyes.

Harry sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I do. But life is about forgiving and moving on.”

“He called Hermione mudblood!”

Draco shrugged his shoulders. “Not really one of my finer moments.”

Ron turned to face Draco and glared at him. “You made the Ministry kill Buckbeak!”

“Once again” Draco smirked a little. If Harry hadn’t known him for all this time, he would have definitely thought it was arrogant. However, he was just trying to hide his laughter about this surreal situation they were in. “Not really something I’m proud of.”

Harry’s best friend apparently thought the Slytherin was laughing about that. “You killed Dumbledore!”

“No, I didn’t.”

Next to Draco, three other voices sounded suddenly. “No, he didn’t!” Harry, Pansy and Blaise had said that almost immediately and it sounded like a choir. Harry grinned slightly and turned back to Ron.

“Look Ron, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I was quite frankly scared how you would react to this. You were always mad at Draco and back when I first talked to him, an hour earlier you were making fun of him. So, I hope you can understand how I didn’t want to jinx anything by telling you guys.”

Ginny smiled and nodded. “I can understand.” She got up and turned towards the kitchen. “I’m getting some coffee.”

Harry tried his hardest to bite back his smirk, and he could feel how Draco was silently laughing. The Slytherin had his facial expression under control, though.

Hermione sat down next to Ron and looked at her boyfriend frowning. Harry could see how Pansy strolled to the kitchen as well and closed the door silently behind her. Not before throwing a death glare at Harry, which quite possibly meant not to disturb them.

“I just can’t believe it! You have been dating _him_ for two years and never told any of us?!” Ron rubbed his temples and shook his head.

His girlfriend turned and frowned at them. “Why did you decide to tell us now?”

Harry bit his lower lip and sighed then. “Draco asked me to marry him.”

“He… WHAT?!” Ron stared at them with open eyes and shook his head again, as if to make something bad go away. Well… this one wasn’t going away. He was going to marry Draco no matter what. “Please tell me you said no!”

“If he said no, why would I still be here, Weasley?” Draco asked and rolled his eyes, while he leaned at Harry to quite obviously show everyone what Harry’s answer had been. “I’m not a bobby prize!” And then there was also the silver ring around Harry’s finger. He saw how Hermione and Ron stared at it for quite some time.

Both had different reactions: Hermione was clearly overjoyed and extremely happy, while Ron closed his eyes, probably in sheer panic and shook his head again. If he kept shaking his head, he would get a headache by tomorrow morning.

Ron got up and walked towards the fire place. “I think I’m going to be sick” he said and disappeared rather quickly.

Hermione sighed and shook her head. “Sorry, guys. I’m sure he’ll come around. I’m happy for you, though! Do you already have plans for when you want to marry?”

Draco grinned and shook his head. “To be honest, I thought I needed to convince him to marry me for at least a year and then he just said yes after the first time I asked…”

“He didn’t even have a ring.”

“I…” Draco glared at him, while Harry laughed loudly and Hermione chuckled. Blaise in the corner was laughing as well and since it seemed to go so well, he came closer and sat down in an arm chair.

Draco crossed his arms and snorted. “I was going to get a ring after asking you for the first time! It was just an idea that came to mind and I decided to act on it.”

Harry chuckled. “Not really that Slytherin of you, dear.”

“Well, your Gryffindory hot headedness seems to rub off on me” Draco said rolling his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the only thing that’s rub…” Blaise started but stopped after Draco threw him a glare that was quite possibly translated to ‘if you keep talking you will end up dead in the trashcan next door’.

Hermione grinned and stood up as well. “I do hope we can meet again and talk, now that I know we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, Draco. I might just pop by and see if I can find you in this mess of a house.”

“Hey!” two voices sounded and Draco and Harry laughed over their shared resentment of that comment.

Blaise on the other hand agreed with Hermione. “You know she’s right!”

“Be careful what you say or I might not invite you ever again!” Harry threatened Blaise.

The Slytherin simply shrugged his shoulders. “I can invite myself, you know.” He stood up to bid good bye to Hermione. And Draco and Harry followed quickly.

Before she left, Hermione knocked on the kitchen door and told Ginny that they were heading home. And that if she wanted to keep staying in their guest room, she should be following now as well. The door opened and a grinning Gryffindor with quite unruly hair and a red lipstick on her lips, which definitely did not belong to her, walked out.

Harry thought about letting her go home just like that and giving Ron another heart attack, since not only his best mate but also his sister seemed to get into a relationship with Slytherins. However, Ron had gone through enough already.

“Ginny, just a little tip: Go to the bathroom, before you’re going out in public” Harry called over and she walked to the bathroom with a red face, matching her red hair quite well, and as quickly as possible.

Blaise grinned and turned to face Harry. “Didn’t you say that there was no action in here? Now look at that! Tension between Draco and Ronald, even more tension between Harry and Ronald, sexual tension between Pansy and Ginny! I would say quite some action!”

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. “Blaise, you are hereby officially unwelcomed in my house.”

“I believe this, once Draco tells me the same.”

As if he hadn’t been following the discussion and he had his head somewhere else, the Slytherin turned towards Blaise once he heard his name. “Same of what?”

Before anyone could tell him, what was going on, he pointed towards the kitchen. Pansy appeared her messy ponytail even messier and she was just pulling her hair back so she could make a new one.

“Having fun, Pans?” Draco asked grinning.

She narrowed her eyes and decided not to say anything.

Ginny was back, stopped dead in her tracks, when she saw Pansy and smiled at her sheepishly. Hermione grabbed some floo power and went back to her house, Ginny following almost immediately. Pansy walked over and sat down on the couch, where Hermione had sat.

Harry was frowning at the cookies and decided to grab one, when Draco pulled his hand back. “That’s a bad idea, love. They’re actually just transfigured kitchen chairs.”


	2. Chapter 2

Harry walked out of the floo, looking around in Ron and Hermione’s house and saw no one home. At least not in the living room. He had planned on finally talking to Ron three weeks after his friends had discovered that Draco had asked Harry to marry him.

When he wanted to open the door, it was opened a second earlier and he was faced with Pansy, looking a little disheveled. They stared at each other and Harry felt the corner of his mouth turning up slowly. Pansy narrowed her eyes and sighed.

“Okay, you got me. Don’t tell anyone!”

Harry chuckled. “I don’t even know what you mean by that.” He winked at her and stepped aside so she could flee through the floo. Which she ended up doing, once she stared him down again.

The second Pansy disappeared, Ginny walked out of the guest room and stopped dead in her tracks, when she saw Harry. It felt just like a sense of déjà vu, since they stared at each other just like Pansy and he had done a few seconds earlier.

“Good morning, Ginevra. Having fun?” Harry grinned, when Ginny rolled her eyes.

She cleared her throat and shrugged her shoulders. “And how long have you been standing here?” She was suddenly very red and her eyes widened. Harry could just about imagine why that would be her reaction.

He decided to get her out of her misery. “A few seconds. I met Pansy by the floo.” He stopped talking and grinned when he saw her turning bright red and concentrating on the belt of her skirt. Interestingly, now that Harry looked at the skirt, it looked very new and not really like something Ginny would wear every day. “So, did you have a fun night?”

“None of your business!”

Harry grinned. “Well, I do believe Pansy will tell me everything about it, so I’ll get the information anyway. Have you seen Ron around?”

Ginny narrowed her eyes and it looked like she was about to throw a Batbogey hex, when she shook her head. “Do you really think I’m having Pansy – a Slytherin – over while he’s here, after how he reacted when he realized you and Draco were a thing?”

“Good point.”

Harry chuckled, while Ginny walked towards the kitchen, made some tea and placed two cups on the kitchen table. He walked in and sat down still grinning about the situation he had just walked in on.

“So, does anyone know about your sexuality? Apart from me?” He grinned and accepted the fruit tea. Even though they had separated a long time ago, they still kept in touch and they still knew how the other liked their coffee or tea.

Ginny smirked and sat down as well. “I do think that Pansy knows about my sexuality as well, Harry.”

“Well, okay than, my dear Ginny. Does anybody who hasn’t slept with you know about your sexuality?”

Rolling her eyes, Ginny wordlessly took her cup and drank the entire tea. Harry shook his head, but sipped at his tea as well. It had been shortly after they had finished their education, when both realized something didn’t work out. It started with both of them noticing that as much as they liked each other… no one had any desire to have sex. At least not with each other. They had stayed together as a cover for another three or four months, where both tested their theory and came out to each other almost at the same time.

While Harry had started a relationship with a Muggle man, Ginny’s first official but still very much secret girlfriend was Luna. Sadly, both relationships didn’t work out: Harry’s, because he couldn’t talk about all the nightmares and things that he had experienced with fighting a super villain (or someone who wanted to be one) and Ginny’s, because her career as a Quidditch player needed her to be on the road or training almost all the time and Luna had suffered under those conditions.

“You know very well, that the only people who know about me are my team mates, you and Hermione by default. If Ron knew, I don’t think he’d let me stay here.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if that ever happens, you now know my secret and are very welcomed to stay in one of my guest rooms. You should just know that we have Slytherins over basically every day.”

Ginny smirked. “It’s not as if I’m allergic to them!”

“No, you seem to be quite attracted to them” he winked at her and she rolled her eyes. 

His friend – almost sister – got up and grabbed some cake out of the fridge. “Well, Harry. To be frank, it’s nice seeing you happy again. And you know, talking about what makes you happy: I always thought that there was someone and that you might be hiding him for some reason.”

“Did you think it was Draco?” Harry wondered and accepted the piece of lemon cake.

“I thought it was Blaise Zabini.”

“What?”

When he looked up, he saw her grinning from ear to ear and laughed loudly. “You evil woman! I mean, you are right about Blaise; he is gay, but he does have a boyfriend.”

Ginny smirked and started eating her piece as well. “Do you know who he is? And, yes I knew it was Draco. You guys were around each other constantly. If there was nothing happening between you two, fate might have needed to hire an additional accountant.”

Harry burst out laughing and rolled his eyes. “Nicely put, Ginny. As for Blaise: I don’t know who. He’s Muggle, that’s all he wanted to tell us. And don’t get me wrong, Draco tried sneaking after him when he had a date, he came back with a black eye.”

“Blaise punched him?”

“No” Harry smirked. “He walked into an opening door, while focusing on Blaise and once he could concentrate on him again, that idiot had disappeared.”

Ginny frowned. “He walked into a door? Draco?! I’m sure there was magic involved.”

“Oh, yeah. There was. Blaise realized that he was being followed and made a car door open, which hit Draco. He confirmed it after he came back from his date” Harry confirmed and grinned.

“There seems to be a lot of drama happening with your Slytherins” Ginny chuckled. She looked at the clock on the wall and smiled. “Ron should be here in about twenty minutes, he went to buy groceries after his night shift. Hermione’s still in the library. So if you want to talk to him alone, you should do it now.”

Harry sighed. He had forgotten that Ron had a nightshift. It wasn’t really the best idea to talk to him if he had to work the entire night… However, maybe it was just right.

Before he could think more about that, the door opened and Ron walked in, looking between Ginny and Harry and sighing.

“I do hope that you two either just made up and are telling me that you want to marry or you’re thinking about another great prank, because the one three weeks ago was great.”

Harry rolled his eyes and Ginny scoffed, definitely not happy with what Ron was saying. However, he did decide to speak up before she could. “Ron, that wasn’t a prank. I’m actually going to marry Draco.”

“You’re a blood traitor!”

Ginny made a disapproving sound and Harry raised his eyebrows while shaking his head. “You do realize that that was what Walburga Black used to call you, right? Because you were on the good side of war?”

“Oh, how has she been lately? Still screaming through the house so that every glass inside shatters?” Ginny grinned.

Harry turned facing her and chuckled. “Oh, she has been a _burga_ at the wall. No actually, we’ve made an agreement, where she’s allowed to scream the house down when someone walks in we don’t like.”

Ginny laughed and Harry couldn’t do anything else but smirk. It had been quite some work to get through to her. Only with the help of the last remaining Black heir, namely Draco, and some powerful magic could they start to talk to her like a normal human being. She did tell them that the elves put up the portrait and Harry knew immediately that there was nothing that could take her down. So they had settled on an agreement. She was allowed to scream once a week for an hour (Thursday nine to ten a.m.) whatever she wanted and if you were in the house or in her view, the chance of being insulted was very high. In addition, she was also allowed to tear people to pieces that annoyed Harry or Draco (or both) and they were very happy telling her all about the people that they didn’t like. Once you got through to her, she was quite a decent person.

“Interesting” Ginny grinned. “And who might be on the list? Blaise, for punching Draco?”

Harry laughed, even more so when he saw Ron’s confused look. “Right now, she might be screaming and shouting when Ron enters.”

The head of the house rolled his eyes and started to stow away the things he bought. Ginny sat on her chair, watching her brother work and even Harry couldn’t resist to check how he was doing.

His best friend was silently putting things away, until there wasn’t anything left and he turned to Harry. They simply stared at each other for a while and Harry sighed.

“Ron, could we please just talk about this?”

The redhead shook his head. “Why? There isn’t anything to talk about! You already decided to marry this idiot without introducing him or even asking us!”

Harry frowned. “And… Did I need to ask you for a permission to get married?”

“Yes!” Ginny interrupted and laughed about her own joke, which made Harry chuckle, but still rolling his eyes, before he turned back to his best friend.

“Isn’t it my life?! You guys told me I should finally start living! Well, I am. I love my life and I love…”

Ron narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “If you say ‘Malfoy’, I’ll kill you." 

Sighing, Harry shook his head. "I was about to say _Draco_" he said under his breath.

"Harry, this is just a phase, we all know it! You shouldn’t have accepted the marriage proposal, when we all know you’ll find someone else. Someone better.”

This time, not even Ginny found something to joke about. Let alone Harry. He stood in the kitchen, waiting for something else, but apart from a lot of colorful swearwords directed at Draco and in general Harry’s sexuality, there was nothing happening.

Well, what happened was that Ginny stood up as well and asked Harry if she could stay in his guestroom, which he automatically confirmed. They walked into her room, packed up everything and left through the floo – Ron was already in bed.

In the living room of Grimmauld Place, Draco sat on the couch, looking through a tour guide of Barcelona, when Harry walked out of the floo, Ginny right behind him.

“Hi love” Draco smiled and raised his eyebrows when he saw Ginny.

Harry smirked. “Hey, I might have picked someone up along the way.”

“Is it that weird redhead behind you or is that simply your shadow that changed and morphed into an actual human being?”

Draco put the tour guide down and came to help with all the things Harry and Ginny had been carrying. 

“I am definitely a shadow and I have come to end all of your lives!”

Harry shoved Ginny back a little and shook his head. “Well, dear shadow, we normally don’t give shadows a guest room, so…”

Ginny rolled her eyes, but grinned as well. “Oh for Merlin’s beard! Just tell me where I can sleep the day away. I need to train in the afternoon and…”she suddenly turned bright red and averted eye contact with Harry, who just laughed.

“And you haven’t slept all night.”

Draco looked from one to the other, but apparently decided not to question what was going on. All three made their way up the stairs, greeted Walburga, who inspected their newcomer very closely, and finally ended up in front of a guest room on the second floor.

“You guys have cleaned the house! It’s amazing! Even better than what Sirius did!”

Harry smirked. He realized that Ginny hadn’t seen the whole house in their visits, because most of the time, Draco and other Slytherins had been hiding on the top few levels, just so that they could sit and talk and eat in peace.

“I’ll show you around after you wake up” he promised.

Draco next to him chuckled, when he brought in the suitcases. “Ginny, the person who cleaned was Harry. I just decorated.”

The house guest laughed and shook her head. “You didn’t like the decoration?”

“Well, if you could have called it decoration. Harry just threw out everything he didn’t like, but never actually got new stuff. The living room had two kitchen chairs and a television. The bed was just a mattress. On the floor!” Draco turned and raised his eyebrows at Harry.

Yes, Harry knew that look, it was a ‘how could you live under such circumstances’ kind of look. Silently judging him for his bad choices. Not that Harry would have minded right now. He knew that even though Draco looked at him that way, he wasn’t actually mean or angry, simply stating that this had been unacceptable.

He rolled his eyes and turned to his fiancé. “You should try it from time to time – being the freaking Chosen One. It’s hard having to live up to everyone’s expectations! I hardly had time to clean the house, let alone go shopping for furniture!”

Ginny sat down on the bed, still grinning from ear to ear. “So then what? You saw how dismal his life style was and decided to change it?”

“Oh no!” Draco shook his head and smirked. “I told him that I wasn’t dating people who had no style or sense of living and I walked away.”

This surprised Ginny, as she widened her eyes and laughed for a second. “But you’re together! You’re getting married! How…?!”

“I was freaking scared, that’s how!” Harry laughed. “I think in forty eight hours I had the house completely transformed, I bought a couch, a kitchen table, more chairs, an actual bed and a wardrobe and invited him over again.”

“Which I accepted but I did tell him that if I ended up in an empty room in this house, I would leave immediately” Draco recounted and grinned at Ginny.

The redhead laughed loudly. “Wait, but you didn’t buy that much! There were definitely empty rooms in this house!”

Harry nodded. “Yes, and I locked them all. But that wasn’t even the worst thing.”

“Walburga started screaming and screeching in the middle of our dinner and we couldn’t make her shut up, so Harry punched the portrait in hopes that she would shut up. He only broke his hand” Draco said laughing and Harry rolled his eyes.

“Best first date ever…”

Ginny chuckled and they left her to her own devices, walking down into the kitchen, where Draco had already started to plan their honeymoon. Harry grinned at his zeal and checked the dates where his fiancé wanted to travel to Barcelona.

He lifted a reservation for a hotel into the air and saw that it was next September. Turning to his fiancé, the man had already busied himself with something, but Harry knew that he had been following his every move out of the corner of his eye.

“Darling, does that mean we’re marrying in September or August next year?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Just because I’ve already made a reservation doesn’t mean we have to marry the day before we go away. Why do people even do that?!”

Harry grinned. “Because it’s tradition.” He walked over to Draco and put his arms around him. “Because a honeymoon was originally planned as a time for _baby making_!”

“Oh no, darling! Do I have to be the one to tell you that two men can’t make a baby?! Oh, how do I do that!?”

Draco made such a fuzz that Harry burst out laughing and shook his head. He decided to jump onto the bandwagon. “Oh no! You destroyed all my dreams! All my hopes of having a baby with you!”

“Well, if you try hard enough, it might just work…” Draco winked at him and kissed his jaw. Harry turned his head and nibbled at the sensitive skin under his earlobe.

“Careful what you wish for, Dray. Who knows, maybe I will try” he whispered and Draco shivered, before raising an eyebrow at him. “Hey, you started it, Dray! Don’t you be mad at me!”

He let go of his fiancé and made a cup of coffee, before sitting down on the opposite side of Draco. They sat there for a while, everyone in their own world, until Draco brought him out of it.

He placed his hand on Harry’s and once he looked up and the Slytherin, he started to talk. “Were you at least successful with Ron?”

“If by successful you mean learning new swearwords along the way, then yes.”

“Well, in that case extremely successful. Anything you could teach me?” Draco smirked.

Harry chuckled. “Not swearwords, maybe other things” he winked at his fiancé, who chuckled silently.

“I don’t think you could teach me those other things, love. We have been together for far too long. I know all your moves.” Draco winked at Harry. “Even your dirty moves.”

Neither man could make another comment, as someone else at the kitchen entrance was already speaking to them.

“Can’t you please contain those filthy thoughts and ways of speaking for inside your bedroom?!”

Harry turned around to see Theo standing there, rolling his eyes and sighing. However, neither Draco nor Harry could keep their smug face under control and the Slytherin guest sighed once more.

Draco collected all of the papers on the kitchen table and put them into a folder, when he turned back to Theo. “What would be the fun in that, Theodore?”

The Slytherin guest snorted and sat down. It looked as if he had something on his mind and he had no idea what to do or how to say it.

“What can we help you with?” Harry asked.

Theo sighed and leaned back in his chair. Draco seemed to realize that he had something on his mind as well and started making his specialty tea. Working as a pharmacist had given Draco a lot of knowledge about how to calm people down with smells and tastes and sometimes even good hearted hugs. Well, the latter wasn’t because of his knowledge but because of Harry who sometimes just needed a hug when everything was overwhelming him. Slytherins not so much.

“Anna told me she wants a divorce.”

Everyone in the kitchen was quiet and Harry bit his tongue. That came very much unexpectedly, especially since Anna was pregnant with Theo’s child. She was going to have a baby in about one month and two weeks and Theo had been over the moon to have a Christmas baby.

Draco seemed to have the same thoughts as he sat down next to his friend. “Oh shit, mate! How are you? What happens to the baby?”

“It’s not even mine. She told me she was in her ninth month. Not in the eighth as she had made me believe. Some Hufflepuff is the father and I can’t believe that someone from Hufflepuff would sleep with a married woman!” Theo placed his head on his arm and sighed.

“Just because you’re in a specific house doesn’t mean you contain all those traits.” Harry felt sorry for Theo. Something like that had to suck. Especially, because everyone knew how much in love Theo had been and now that. “Is there anything we can do to help you with that?”

Theo nodded and sighed again. “Could I maybe stay here for a while? Anna’s family’s over and they blame me for her actions, saying that I didn’t give her all the attention she so clearly needed.”

Draco smiled at him reassuringly. “No need to explain, Theo. You are always welcomed to stay here for as long as you need.”

Harry nodded approvingly and turned around to get the suitcase, Theo had brought with him, to another guest room. Funnily enough, every Slytherin had their own guest room inside this house. It hadn’t been the first time that someone had appeared with the intent of staying here. Most of the time, they had a bad nightmare or others had prejudices about them which made them fall back into their old ways of thinking. A trip to Grimmauld Place and some friends and fun times had always helped out everyone. Most of the visitors could go out again once they had spent three or four days in the company of Harry and Draco and everyone else who just so happened to stay there or visit them.

In the one year and few months where Harry and Draco had lived together there had never been a week or a day even when they had been alone. Granted, sometimes they hid themselves inside their bedroom to finally get some time alone, but even their guests knew that whenever that happened, they shouldn’t disturb them. And it actually worked rather well.

Back inside the kitchen to nobody’s surprise, Pansy was sitting there, telling all of her nightly excursions with a certain Gryffindor who was going to stay nameless. Well, Pansy hadn’t said who it was, but everyone in the room knew it was Ginny. Draco and Harry knew because Pansy had told them more than once that she was going to get into the Gryffindor’s bed and Theo knew… well, because you could say that she was as obsessed as Draco had been with Harry in their school years and vice versa.

“If I wouldn’t have known it better, I’d say you’re in love, Pansy Parkinson” Harry grinned as he placed tea and cookies on the kitchen table.

Pansy shot him a death glare, but shrugged her shoulders a second later. “I don’t know what it is, Harry. It actually could be love, but I’m not going to waste time thinking about it.”

“No, you’re just going to waste your time hunting after a certain Gryffindor” Draco winked at her and she rolled her eyes.

“Well, dear Mr. Malfoy, you’re talking from experience, aren’t you?” she smirked and Harry caught his fiancé looking at him for a second, before blushing slightly.

Theo already looked a little better and he chuckled. “Are you telling me, instead of marrying a Slytherin, I should have been looking for a Gryffindor?”

Harry right out laughed and shook his head. “Guys! Just because people are in a certain house, doesn’t mean they’re all the same!”

“True, but with all those heated arguments comes heated and amazing sex” Draco smirked and winked at him. Harry really wanted to put his hands over Draco’s mouth, however, their guests knew all about that already. Draco was not one to spare his friends with details, much like Pansy.

“And don’t forget that most of the time Slytherin and Gryffindor have an amazing personality clash! After a relationship like that, every other one just seems boring!” Pansy added, grinning at Harry. They all knew very well that Draco and Harry had the most personality clashes and that those moments were the most intensive ones (next to the heated sex which Draco had referred to so eloquently).

Harry simply rolled his eyes and excused himself, trying to get away before he was being sucked into the Slytherin hole of truths, he didn’t want to know about. Even when he walked to his office, he could hear them talking about sex and Lions versus Snakes in relationships. Before he could even enter his own office, he heard Draco bragging about giving Harry three orgasms last night. Harry could only shake his head and smirked while closing the door behind him.

Draco would most certainly brag about something like that, however, he would never admit that Harry had done the same to him and that he had needed almost twenty minutes to get back from his blissful state of mind. Even though Harry didn’t very much like Draco bragging about his sexual talents, he couldn’t stop him from doing it and in reality, it secretly turned him on hearing his fiancé talking about what happened or what he did.

Who said you couldn’t have secrets when you got married anyway? Also, he had a hunch that Draco knew all about it, which was why he kept talking about it. And that was something Harry loved Draco even more for.


	3. Chapter 3

Draco was whistling a Christmas tune from one of those countless Christmas movies Harry had dragged him to and walked into the kitchen, where Harry was working on breakfast for basically everyone they knew. He had pancakes on the stove next to bacon and eggs. Beside him at the table sat Ginny, cutting vegetables, and Pansy sitting across from her, was mixing a dip for said vegetables. Theo expertly brew some coffee and Gregory just rummaged through the fridge for something to eat.

When Harry looked up and smirked at Draco, said Slytherin put the freshly made bread on the table and kissed his fiancé. That was something Harry liked about him (next to a thousand of other things), ever since they had been to France for two months, Draco had started to despise the bread from England. He had looked for weeks until he had finally found a small bakery in an alley that sold bread quite like in France. Ever since he had found it, he would go there around twice or three times a week just to get bread he liked.

“Looks like everyone’s awake right now” Draco smirked, but Harry shook his head.

“Mil came over. They had a problem with someone raging on about their gender identity. Blaise is with them right now.”

Draco sighed and shook his head. “Why do people keep trying to fit everyone in a box?”

“Because it’s easier to store boxes than people” Pansy commented and tasted her dip before nodding approvingly. Ginny snuck one of her vegetable sticks into it and tasted it as well, grinning happily over what they had accomplished.

And so they finished their preparations, set the table and were done by the time Blaise walked into the kitchen. Pansy and Ginny were giggling about something with each other. Over the past few weeks, these two had become even closer and Harry wasn’t even sure if Pansy ever left the house during the nights or if she stayed with Ginny. However, nobody really cared as both of them seemed to be very happy. Gregory and Theo were discussing a new law which made it even harder for former Death Eaters and Slytherins in general to find a job. Both of them were working in Draco’s pharmacy, so they were happy with their job and whenever Blaise needed some help with paying for his rent, he could work there part time as well. Sometimes there were so many people working in Draco’s pharmacy that there was someone for every customer that walked in – even when they were all coming at the same time.

“How’s Mil?” Harry asked, when Blaise sat down next to him and Draco leaned closer to probably hear the answer as well.

Blaise sighed. “Not well. They had a slight panic attack a few hours ago and I could just about calm them down now. I gave them one of Draco’s Sleeping Draught along with Dreamless Sleep, so they should be able to sleep now for a few hours.”

“What happened anyway?” Draco asked and grabbed another pancake with some berries.

“A coworker of theirs asked why they were wearing make-up, but clearly men’s clothing and what happened to their breasts” Harry explained and rolled his eyes. “That’s all I could gather, before they cried and Blaise took over.”

“I fucking hate people who attack others because of their sexuality or just because they’re different” Draco mumbled and Harry could only agree. Especially when something like that happened. Luckily, Mil hadn’t had that many problems since they had changed their job and that coworker of theirs was new and had already said some hurtful things. Draco and Harry and everyone they knew had all convinced Mil that they should talk to their boss, which they eventually did.

“Well, talking about some lighter things” Blaise changed the subject and grinned at everyone. “I have finally decided to introduce my boyfriend to you all. Or to everyone who just so happens to stick around here!”

“Ooooh!” Draco and Pansy said at the same time, before grinning at each other and laughing loudly, while Blaise rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Harry chuckled and turned to his friend. “Big question, though: Does he know you’re a wizard? Or are we meeting in a restaurant, where we all have to pretend to be normal?”

“No one at this table can be normal, Harry” Ginny commented.

“Well, Slytherins can’t be normal. Gryffindors most certainly can pretend to be normal” Gregory answered and gave Ginny a pointed look, which she laughed about.

Draco smirked. “So you think a certain _Harry Potter_ can pretend to be normal?”

“Hey, I _am_ normal!” Harry defended himself, but burst out laughing a second later, while everyone followed.

“So much for behaving like normal human beings” Blaise commented, smirking about their discussion. “And Harry, he knows I’m a wizard.”

Everyone was quiet for a second, thinking about what that might mean. Harry was the first to speak up, while grabbing some bacon, which Draco stole after a second. “So, it’s serious then? Since, you know, we’re not supposed to tell Muggles that wizards exist…”

Blaise turned a little red and earned himself another ‘ooooh’ from Draco and Pansy, while their partners smacked a napkin over their heads. Harry and Ginny grinned at each other, before turning to look at the Slytherin in question.

“Well” Blaise started, a little nervous, “I would like to think that it’s serious! I mean, we have been dating for about six months now. He did already know about wizards and witches before we met, though. Apparently his cousin or uncle or whatever was a witch or wizard.”

Theo got up to grab some more coffee and Ginny just stole the last piece of bacon from Pansy’s plate, while Gregory quickly picked up the last piece of pancakes and the berries in question. Harry smirked at everything and gave Draco a kiss on his cheek, when he fought Pansy for the last egg.

“Seeing this chaos, I probably shouldn’t introduce him to you guys” Blaise grinned and shook his head.

Harry laughed wholeheartedly and turned to his friend. “Well at least we’re not fighting with conjured cake, cookies and… what was it?”

“Sandwiches” Pansy and Ginny said at the same time.

Blaise laughed, while Gregory and Theo looked at the others shaking their heads. Harry quickly told them what had happened when his best friends had come over and he wanted to tell them that Draco had asked him to get married. In the end, everyone was laughing loudly and they finished breakfast quickly.

Harry had always appreciated how Slytherins worked; right now, Pansy and Theo had both volunteered to clean the dishes, Gregory was putting everything back to where it belonged and Blaise and Draco both checked up on Mil, seeing if they needed another potion or if they were sleeping.

Ginny had gotten up to check her gear. Even though it was Sunday, they had another training session, as they were supposed to play against France in three days. Everyone was freaking out as France hadn’t lost a game in two years.

Just when Ginny left (Pansy in tow, so she could watch the training and write about it in the Prophet), Blaise and Draco walked back into the living room. Harry had placed a platter with cookies and fruit on the table in front of the fire place.

“Blaise just told me that he wanted to introduce his boyfriend this evening!” Draco smirked and when the other Slytherin tried to catch him and do… whatever, he jumped out of the Slytherin’s reach and right into Harry’s arms.

The Slytherin narrowed his eyes. “Just because you’re in your boyfriend’s arms doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you!”

“Fiancé” three people in the room said. Draco and Harry grinned, looking at Theo who had been the other voice. He simply shrugged and smirked.

Rolling his eyes, Blaise sighed. “I said I _might_ introduce him tonight. We’re meeting some of his friends for tea this afternoon and…”

“And I wanted him to come by tonight. Since it’s almost Christmas and all that, it would be nice, you know!” Draco explained everything.

Harry chuckled. “Don’t you think he’s got a family on his own where he has to be? And also, every Advent Sunday, we have the most people for dinner. Don’t you remember that last week only we had seventeen people?”

Theo laughed. “And don’t you remember that every third Advent Sunday you guys go out and buy a Christmas tree which we all decorate after dinner?”

“We did that literally once! We haven’t been together for more Christmases!” Draco countered and rolled his eyes at Theo.

“Well don’t forget the mistletoe!” Greg called from the kitchen, before he walked in a second later carrying tea.

“I’m starting to think it was a bad idea to tell you about my boyfriend” Blaise sighed and Harry chuckled, grabbing Draco and pulling onto his lap. The Slytherin came willingly and kissed him deeply once they were sat.

Greg and Theo sat down as well, silently eating cookies, while Blaise walked circles around the arm chair. He only stopped once Draco pushed him into it and sat back down on Harry’s lap, while rolling his eyes at him.

“Blaise, if it helps you decide: The people that are definitely going to be here are Draco’s mother and aunt Andromeda with Teddy, Theo, Pansy with her parents, Ginny and I think three of the people on her team, Greg” Harry turned to face said Slytherin. “And anyone special?”

Greg shook his head. “Mother wanted to come, but Father needed her for something, so she’s going to Azkaban instead.”

“Harry said ‘special’, Greg” Draco smirked and dodged a flying cushion. It missed the Slytherin, but smacked right into Harry. He shook his head, while the ‘children’ in the room laughed their asses off. Harry decided to ignore their discussion and to just continue counting everyone.

“Mil’s definitely not going anywhere, so that’s fifteen people” he smiled. “I’m also expecting George and Angelina – Ron told them about us and they wanted to meet everyone.”

Theo chuckled. “More Gryffindors for us!”

Draco huffed and rolled his eyes. “Is Ron coming as well?”

“He better not, because if he is, I’m not introducing my boyfriend in the middle of that chaos.”

Theo laughed. “Oh, but we’re not chaos on our own?”

Blaise sighed. “That chaos I can handle, the other…”

Harry chuckled. “Don’t worry, guys. Ron’s not coming. He’s having a little fight with Hermione at the moment, so maybe she’ll be over for a second.”

“Even more Gryffindors!” Theo conjured some confetti and made it rain from the ceiling. Greg was laughing along with Theo, while Blaise shook his head, probably seriously debating whether he should actually introduce his boyfriend to such childlike creatures.

Draco on the other hand was staring Theo into the ground and after he had calmed down and the confetti was on the ground, he sighed. “I know who’s on cleaning duty while we pick out the Christmas tree.”

Harry chuckled and kissed his fiancé’s neck softly, which made Draco shudder and he turned to kiss his fiancé passionately, while putting his arms around his neck.

“Is it Goyle?” Theo asked innocently and if Harry hadn’t kept Draco from charging after his friend, Theo might have been out for the day. Or Draco would have hexed him with a fanatic spell which would have probably made him clean like crazy.

In fact, after lunch, Blaise went to meet with his boyfriend and Theo started cleaning the floor, while Greg offered to cook for tonight’s guests. Draco and Harry walked through London, not really in the mood for apparating, and soon found themselves in the middle of a Christmas tree market.

It didn’t take them long to find one that matched perfectly to what they both liked. As per their tradition, they also walked through a Christmas market, looking for a new ornament. They had started this tradition last year (their first official Christmas together) and it felt still new enough to make it special. Draco found a sleigh with Santa Claus and a stag instead of a reindeer. Harry presented him with a green glass bauble. There was no discussion after that and Draco had insisted on getting the green bauble, since it matched the Christmas tree (and everything inside Grimmauld Place and additionally also represented Slytherin). Not that Harry had minded.

When the Christmas tree was finally standing in the living room of Grimmauld Place, with the help of Theo and Greg, the Slytherins left for Theo’s room to wrap some presents (well except Draco) and the two of them hung their ornament.

“You know Draco, I actually love how this place somehow became people’s home or safe place.”

Draco leaned in and kissed him softly. “Do you want to know why you love the feeling of that?”

Harry frowned. What was that supposed to mean? “Why?”

“Because it makes you feel needed. All of your life people needed you and then, when you finally destroyed Him, you were lost. And don’t even try to deny it, we both know it” Draco rolled his eyes, but Harry chuckled.

Yes, he was right. Harry had been so deep in his I-am-the-Savior-bubble that after the war, he had felt lost. He only joined the Aurors because it felt like he was doing something good and helping people. The truth was, he hated that job. So, over the years he had reduced the time he spent inside the office. Right now he was working part time as a replacement Auror only. It wasn’t that they needed the money anyway. And until he was able to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, he was going to stay in that job he hated. Well, part times anyway.

Draco ran his fingers through Harry’s hair and brought him back to reality. “Right now, helping all those lost Slytherins… and Gryffindors actually, you can feel needed once more and I know for a fact that you need this.”

“Aren’t you mad that we rarely get to spend time together?”

His fiancé laughed and shook his head. “It’s not like we never get to spend time together. For example, right now” he winked at Harry, who smirked in return.

He placed an arm around Draco and pulled him closer. “You are just amazing, Dray!”

“Shhh, don’t let the others hear that!” Draco laughed and grabbed his hand. When they turned around, Mil was standing at the door frame and made both men jump.

“Oh shit!” Draco swore and laughed after that.

Harry shook his head, but turned to Mil rather quickly. “Hey, how are you doing?”

Mil sighed and rubbed their temples. “Not really good, but better than before. Sorry for what happened.”

They walked into the kitchen and Mil followed closely. Draco placed a piece of cake in front of their guest and Harry asked if they wanted something else, bacon or eggs or even pancakes. Mil shook their head and smiled at the arrangement.

“You guys have always been so nice to me. I don’t even remember a time before I could hide in here with you” they said while starting to eat.

Harry brew some strong coffee and Draco sat down next to Mil and they started talking about the improvements of their new job and that damn coworker who just doesn’t seem to be able to take a hint.

Once Harry placed the coffee in front of Mil and they grabbed it, clearly needing some caffeine, they seemed better immediately.

“Can I maybe stay here for a few days? I don’t think I can face my parents in the state I’m in right now. In the end, I’ll even agree on being Millicent again and that everything had just been a phase” they rolled their eyes and Harry sighed.

“You can stay here as long as you want, Mil! No need to ask, you know that! And don’t you let other people tell you who you are! Most of us have experience with that, okay? You can always come and ask any of us for help” Harry emphasized.

Draco nodded and placed a hand on Mil’s arm, silently comforting them.

They leaned back in their chair and sighed. “I’m already so looking forward to Christmas. My parents being embarrassed of their off-spring, telling me I’m not allowed to be who I am if people are coming over. I need to be their perfect little daughter.”

“You can always stay here, you know that, don’t you? And no one here would pressure you into being someone you’re not” Draco explained and squeezed their arm slightly.

“I know, I know” they grabbed another cup of coffee and sipped it. “I might come by on Sylvester, if that’s alright with you.”

Draco and Harry both raised their eyebrows and shook their heads as a sign that Mil should stop asking. Everyone was welcomed, literally anyone. Draco had been thrown out of his house and cut out of his father’s will when he had come out to them. Narcissa had shortly after gotten a divorce and moved into a small flat in Muggle London with her son. She was currently dating a Muggle, who was a good man and both Harry and Draco had met him, but he didn’t know anything about them being wizards.

And Harry, well. The Dursley’s had never known he was gay, until they once accidentally met Vernon and Petunia in Muggle London and they found Draco and Harry kissing. All hell had broken loose and Harry’d just had enough time restraining his then boyfriend and now fiancé from attacking two Muggles in public. 

And now of course Ron, who didn’t seem to be able to get over the fact that Harry was gay and engaged with Draco. When he had found out last week that Ginny had a thing going on with Pansy, he had told Harry that he was infectious, which prompted the fight Hermione and he were having right now.

Mil was feeling better rather quickly and by the time Theo and Greg joined them for tea, Draco and Mil were joking and crafted mistletoes for the kitchen entrance as well as for the staircase. They were just making a third one, which was going to be hidden somewhere, when Theo sat down next to Mil.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Mil! Other than what happened today, how is it going?”

He grabbed a red ribbon and offered it to Mil, which they accepted. “Other than today, it’s actually really good! My new boss actually asked me to write a draft for a law towards the inclusion of different gender identities and sexualities in the Ministry. She said I was the perfect person for such a thing. And I think she really means it.”

Congratulations were thrown around in the kitchen and Mil seemed genuinely happy about such an opportunity. Honestly, who wouldn’t be?!

After tea and shortly before dinner, Pansy and Ginny came back and walked into the bathroom. Draco and Harry only looked at each other, rather sure of what was happening in their bathroom right about now.

The guest arrived shortly after. While Greg with the help of Theo, who didn’t want to be reminded that his parents thought he was to blame for the divorce, worked away in the kitchen for dinner, Harry, Draco and Mil worked in the living room, setting up the big table. The first guest to walk out of the fire place, was Andromeda with Narcissa and a very excited Teddy.

“Haaaaaarryyy!” he called out and jumped around Harry’s neck. He had just enough time to catch him and twirl him around the living room.

“Hey little man! Did you grow?”

“It’s been only a week, Harry!” Teddy laughed and spotted Draco. He jumped up to his cousin with shining eyes. “Draco, look what I can do!” When Draco turned to face him, Teddy had platinum blond hair, just like Harry’s fiancé.

Draco smirked and ruffled through his hair. “Have you been practicing?”

“Every day!”

“Good boy!”

Narcissa greeted Harry in the mean time and Andromeda followed suit, after she greeted Mil. Teddy was running around, looking for the mistletoes, since he knew there were three and one was always hidden somewhere.

Last year, Draco had hidden said mistletoe in the bathroom over the toilet and everyone who had walked in there had walked out laughing loudly. And it was sort of what Harry and Draco were trying to do. Making sure that everyone had a good time. If that included a mistletoe over the toilet, why not?

“Hello Mother” Draco greeted Narcissa and kissed her cheeks.

“Thank you for the invitation and I am sorry, I couldn’t attend last week. Richard’s family had a get together and they wanted to meet me.”

Mil smiled at Narcissa. “Was it fun?”

“Oh, I had better get togethers. And his sisters think I’m a little weird. Which, if they knew the whole story would definitely be appropriate” Narcissa explained with a slight smile on her face.

Draco laughed and Harry couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. Andromeda stood next to her sister, smiling as well. “And which part do you mean, my dear. The part where you had a failed arranged marriage, the one where you were fighting on the dark side or simply the fact that you’re a witch?”

“I would think it’s the last one” Draco grinned. “Along with having a gay son, who has just asked his boyfriend to marry him.”

“Why would that be weird for Narcissa?” Harry asked smirking and he turned to her future mother-in-law. “It’s not like you’re walking around with a sign saying that your son’s gay.”

“No, but Richard wanted to make a sign for me, so I didn’t have to tell everyone that you guys were gay. I think it’s a little much, honestly.” Narcissa smirked.

Mil chuckled. “Maybe you should make a sign!” she turned to Draco who rolled his eyes.

“I’d rather kiss my fiancé in public. That’s got about the same effect as a sign around my neck.”

Narcissa laughed lightly. “Well, I think it’s all of the parts together, which makes me look a little weird.”

Before they could talk a little more, Pansy’s parents arrived and greeted Andromeda, Narcissa and Mil warmly. Draco excused himself, quite possibly going to tell Pansy to speed up as her parent’s had just arrived. After them, George and Angelina arrived through the floo as well.

“Harry, old sport!” George called out and hugged him tightly. “How have you been?!”

Laughing, Harry hugged him back and also greeted Angelina. “I’m good, how about you guys?”

“Perfect!” George laughed and told Harry that they were expecting. They were all over the moon and Narcissa and Mil, who had been standing close enough to hear what George had said, congratulated the young couple.

“We heard you got engaged!” Angelina grinned and turned to the door, where Draco just walked in and behind him Pansy as well. “How is it, living with Snakes?”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “Couldn’t be better!”

That second, Draco snuck his arms around Harry’s waist and he turned a little to kiss his cheeks. His fiancé greeted George and Angelina and once Harry told him their big news, he congratulated them as well. He did, however, tell them not to mention it when Theo was in the room and Harry explained that he was going through a divorce, since Anna was having another man’s baby.

Ten minutes later, Ginny joined the party and three of her team mates flooed in a second after. Pansy and Ginny kept looking at each other and it was so obvious that George and Angelina asked Harry and Draco about their relationship.

“No one knows for sure” Draco grinned.

“But everyone suspects that they have been together for at least a month now” Harry added smirking.

Draco left again to check in on Theo and Greg in the kitchen, when Teddy charged into the room, yelling about the mistletoe in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head, glaring at Draco, who smirked in response, before leaving entirely.

“Did Draco really just hang a mistletoe in your nightmare spot?” George asked and looked from Harry to Draco.

Harry sighed. “He tends to become a nightmare himself if I leave him alone for too long. I might have to punish him for that later.”

When George smirked, he rolled his eyes. “Not like that George, get your dirty thoughts out of your mind! You’re going to be a father soon!”

“And until that happens, I can be as dirty as I want to be!”

“Oh, that’s good! We need someone who can work through the weed in our garden!” Draco commented and appeared next to Harry, grinning at George.

“In. Your. Dreams. Malfoy.”

Draco laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Worth a try. We’re eating in ten minutes. Is anyone missing?“

Harry looked over the assembly. Narcissa was talking with Mil and Pansy’s father. Pansy discussed something with Andromeda, her mother and one of Ginny’s team mates. The other two were talking with Ginny about their game in France. And Teddy was running from person to person, really interested in anyone, who showed even the slightest interest in him.

“Only Hermione if she decides to come by. Oh, and Blaise and his plus one.”

Draco chuckled. “If _he_ decides to come by.”

That minute, the door bell sounded and Draco walked to open the door, which was quite possibly Blaise and his boyfriend. They introduced themselves, while Harry walked over to the kitchen to ask Theo and Greg if they needed any help with bringing the food to the table, when he caught a glimpse of Blaise’s boyfriend and stopped dead in his track.

“Well... shit.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dudley. How did that happen?! How did Blaise meet a ‘Muggle’ and said Muggle turned out to be his cousin?! And they had been dating for six months? Vernon and Petunia must be so proud of their son...

Harry sighed and instead of hiding in the kitchen, he decided to head towards the man who had tormented him his entire life. Well... his entire childhood. He wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. Walking out of the living room into the hallway, he closed to door so the people inside couldn’t hear or see very well what was going on.

“Good evening, everyone” Harry said and hoped that his voice wasn’t trembling too much.

Blaise greeted him, but since Dudley didn’t say anything, only stared at Harry, he frowned at his boyfriend. Actually, both wizards looked at their respectable loved once and didn’t know what to say.

“Long time no see, Dudley.”

His cousin did look better. He wasn’t overweight and it looked as if he was living a much healthier life-style than before. He was wearing blue suit pants, but a more comfortable light blue whitish button up shirt. On his wrist, he was wearing an expensive looking watch, so whatever he was doing seemed to be generating a lot of money.

Once Dudley had finally found his voice again, he inhaled sharply. “Harry, I am so sorry for everything! I hope you know that! If you want me to go, then…”

It was quiet again and Harry knew he had to decide what he wanted to do. There were two options: Throwing him out of the house and telling Blaise that he wasn’t invited it he would bring Dudley with him or… accepting that both their childhoods were messed up and start anew.

Honestly, he had always been a sucker for forgiveness… So the decision was quite easy. Even though Dudley was on an entirely different level than other people.

“I don’t think you’re a waste of space, Dudley.”

Both men stood in silence and smiled at each other after a long and tense minute. Harry extended a hand to finally greet his cousin properly and Dudley did so as well. It seemed like a good start for future relationships.

Draco cleared his throat and looked from Harry to Dudley. “Great, can someone now please tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m on Draco’s side here… What just happened?” Blaise asked frowning.

Harry grinned at his guest. “Well, you’re dating my cousin and we just made peace, so you’re welcome.”

“Wow, hold on!” Draco’s eyes widened and Harry knew immediately that he wouldn’t let Dudley off that easily. He had told his fiancé everything that his cousin had done to him and they had spent many nights lying awake, crying together about how bad their lives had been – including their families. “You are Harry’s cousin? Dudley Dursley?!”

Blaise was already standing half in front of his boyfriend and frowned at Draco, who narrowed his eyes slightly. Harry put a calming hand on his fiancé’s shoulder and shook his head. There was not going to be a fight while his guests were in the living room getting ready for a meal. Also, Draco’s mother was around and Harry would be damned if she caught him fighting a Muggle.

“Dray, it’s okay. We talked about it and…”

“You did not talk about it!” Draco turned around, livid. “You said he wasn’t a waste of space! What the hell is that even supposed to mean?!”

Instead of Harry, Dudley spoke up. Harry had to applaud him for his Gryffindory braveness. “Well, maybe I can clear that up: All my life, my parents told us children that Harry was just a waste of space and before he left to… fight, I think, I told him that I didn’t think he was a waste of space. My parents did hate me for that, but I didn’t care.”

All four people in the hallway were quiet. Harry could hear how Theo and Greg were just presenting their food and Teddy was screaming around the living room that he was going to get Harry and Draco. Harry quickly shot a locking charm at the door and turned to his guests and Draco.

“Are we good, Dray?”

Sighing, Draco nodded, but not without sending Dudley a glaring look. Blaise exhaled loudly, clearly not having been ready for such a discussion on a normally quite enjoying evening.

Harry chuckled and sent Draco into the living room to check up on everything and calm down a shouting Teddy, who was trying to get through Harry’s locking charm. He pointed Dudley towards the coat rack.

“So, your parents must have been ecstatic to find out you’re dating a man?” He smirked a little, when Dudley rolled his eyes.

“I wanted to introduce Blaise to them, but they threw me out once they realized that he was more than ‘just a friend’… I haven’t heard from them ever since. And honestly, I don’t need to. If they can’t accept me as I am, then why should I even bother” his cousin explained.

Harry chuckled. “I think you’ll fit right in here, Dudley.”

He opened the door and Teddy got out of Draco's clutches and flew around his neck. Harry almost fell down, but he could steady himself rather quickly. He turned to Blaise and Dudley and grinned.

“Meet my godson Teddy.” He grinned, when the child turned his hair bright blond again and Blaise and Dudley both showed their surprise, though each for their own and different reasons.

Blaise ruffled through Teddy’s hair and smirked. “You finally got it, Tedster! Only took you four months! Now you only need to practice to get red hair, then you can do everything!”

“He can… He can change his hair color?” Dudley shook his head as if he was in a dream.

“Yeah, he got that from his mother” Harry explained and grinned. “Come on in, guys. We’re just starting to eat.”

When Dudley and Blaise entered, everyone was looking up from where they were sitting and greeting the newcomers. Harry saw his cousin’s eyes suddenly widen when he noticed George and he bit both his lips in an effort not to scream, probably.

“Hey, I know you, don’t I?” George frowned, before it seemed to hit him. “You’re Dudley! You look so much better than the last time, we saw each other” he grinned.

They all sat down, Harry making sure that Dudley was sitting between Theo and himself, in case anything weird happened. Draco frowned, but sat down next to Harry and Teddy. George who was now sitting directly on the opposite side of Dudley smirked a little.

He grabbed some more meat and turned to Harry’s cousin. “Since we’re both adults now, I’d like to formally apologize for that childhood drama. My guess is we’ll see each other a lot from now on.”

Harry frowned and grabbed something else to eat as well. “How so? You do realize that this house is more of an orphanage or for people who want to get another family? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see you more often, but you sort of have a family…”

George sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Ron told everyone in my family. Well, Charlie wasn’t around but he rarely is, because of exactly that problem.” He paused for effect, but sighed again. “The problem is that our family’s more… interested in being normal. Mum was a mess when Charlie said he didn’t want to be in a relationship, that he was perfectly happy with his dragons. But when Ron came along and told her all about you and Draco, she was freaking out and told everyone of us not to stay in contact with you.”

“What?!” Harry frowned and then looked at Ginny, who sat at the other end, clearly flirting with Pansy, while still being sassy with her Quidditch team mates.

Shrugging his shoulders again, George continued. “I couldn’t really do that, because I knew Freddy was bi. I’d rather be friends with you and know that he would be happy with that, than staying in the happy bubble of my family. Of course Ron and Percy were clearly happy with it. Well anyway, she threw me out of the house and right now, we have been looking for a place to stay.”

Harry huffed and shook his head. “You are always welcome here, George! In fact, why don’t you stay here until you find a home you can afford and that you like?”

Angelina smiled broadly at him. “You mean it?”

“Harry always means something like that” Blaise answered and grinned.

“And Ginny?” Harry asked, changing the topic and looking over to his friend once again.

“She walked out, telling mum that she already has a new home and that she did not intend on coming back, as long as mum was being difficult about it.” George smirked also looking at her. “But by the look of it, she did that more for herself than for the Boy Who Lived.”

Harry rolled his eyes, when George winked at him. Dudley next to them frowned and turned to his cousin. “The boy… what?”

Before Harry had any time to say something, Blaise answered that. “Oh, that’s just one of Harry’s uncountable media-names. _The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, The Savior_…”

“I think he’s getting it, Blaise” Harry rolled his eyes, but smirked when Dudley looked at him rather surprised and taken aback.

Narcissa, who was sitting next to Andromeda, leaned at her a little, so she could talk to George. “I never understood how mothers could throw their offspring out because they’re different than others.” She looked at Draco in a meaningful way and mother and son smiled at each other.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and after some meaningless talk about families and mothers and the approaching Christmas break, Ginny and Pansy cleaned the table with magic, before Theo and Greg levitated the dessert onto everyone’s table.

“Welcome to our world, Dudley” Harry laughed and his cousin shook his head over how easy it seemed to work right now.

Blaise sighed. “I don’t think I would have invited Dudley, if I knew that this many people would be here!”

Harry couldn’t stop laughing, when he saw how Draco rolled his eyes and smirked. “Dear old friend, how old is your brain? Harry told you that we were expecting a lot of people and all of those were wizards… Or did you forget?”

“So, Dudley, how did you meet Blaise?” Harry asked, deciding to ignore Draco and Blaise arguing with each other. He did smirk when his cousin’s boyfriend looked at him viciously.

Before he could say anything however, Dudley started talking already. “Well, before my father threw me out I started working in a gym that I went to a lot. And one day, Blaise came in and I started training with him and two years ago we started our own gym branch. It’s nothing huge, but I think it’s important to have a personal connection to the customers, that way they always come back.”

“Hold on, Blaise you own a gym?!” Theo asked and smirked.

Blaise rolled his eyes and Draco burst out laughing. Dudley frowned and looked at Harry, who shrugged his shoulders. Sometimes he had no idea what was going on… This was one of those times. Luckily, Pansy explained why people (Slytherins) were laughing at it.

“Our dear friend, Blaise, always told anyone that he would only take a step into a fitness studio once the wizards and witches of the old would reanimate and start to fight against us” she explained and grinned, when the wizard in question hid his perfectly red face.

Dudley smirked and rubbed his boyfriend’s back, while others laughed and with that they finished the meal and turned their attention to the tree at the back. Everyone seemed to be perfectly happy with starting to decorate it.

Well, what actually happened… Draco grabbed his Slytherin friends and made Harry choose the others to decorate half the tree and decide which side was better. Blaise ended up having golden angel hair, while Harry threw fake snow at Draco. The Slytherin responded by grabbing some gift ribbons and putting them around Harry’s neck, loosely knotting them together to a small bow.

Pansy and Ginny hung baubles, dropping one or two, while the elders just sat down and decided to watch the chaos happening. Dudley joined them rather quickly, not that Harry could have blamed him. Teddy on the other hand was running around the tree helping everyone, but especially Mil who refused to simply work for Draco.

In the end, the tree looked… as if two parties had been trying to outdo the other, but both failed spectacularly. However, no one cared, because it was fun and everyone liked it. Harry brought some cookies, with Greg pouring everyone’s favorite Christmas tea.

They talked about everything, most of all: the unexpected turns of life. Harry smiled at it all. He realized suddenly that his home was exactly the way he had always wanted it. It didn’t matter that some people (the Weasley family) wasn’t beside him, because he had a lot of others who liked him just the way he was.

He got up and walked towards the kitchen, when the fire place lit up and Hermione walked out. Harry smiled at her and grabbed her arm to walk with him towards the kitchen for some Christmas chocolate.

“How are you doing, ‘Mione?” he asked carefully.

His best friend sighed and shook her head. “I wish I could say that it’s going good… Ron’s getting worse and worse. I don’t think I… I don’t think I can stay with him.”

Harry raised his eyebrows questioning. “You… You mean a divorce?! You guys have been married for seven years!”

“Yes and I start to think that it was a mistake marrying immediately after the war. I never really had time getting to know Ron better – as a human being.” Hermione sighed and rubbed her temples. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. He was badmouthing George and Ginny for walking away and I told him to get a grip on what life is all about.”

Harry frowned and sat down next to her. “I am so sorry, Hermione.”

She simply sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly, you don’t know all of it. The very next second, he threw me out! I apparated to the Leaky, but it’s Christmas time, so every room’s booked.”

“Fuck.” Harry rolled his eyes. How could he think that Ron was his best friend?! No human being threw out his wife in the middle of the winter. “You know you can always stay here, right?” When he looked at Hermione, it looked as if it wasn’t the only thing that was bothering her.

“Harry, I’m pregnant!”

This left him speechless. Hermione was fighting her tears hard and she grabbed the table as if it was the only stable thing in her life. Which was definitely not true, since it had been rocking from side to side ever since he had bought it.

He hugged his best friend and kissed hed temple. "We're going to find a solution, Hermione!"

Before he had time to say more, the door opened and Draco walked in, smiling at them. “Hey guys, hi Hermione! Mother, Aunt Andromeda and Teddy are about to leave, darling. Could you say goodbye? I’ll entertain your best friend for you.”

Harry looked at Hermione skeptically, when she motioned for him to bid goodbye. The last thing he heard when he walked back into the living room was Draco asking Hermione how she was doing. He hoped that his fiancé could actually help her.

Once Teddy had seen him, he ran towards him and threw his hands around his neck. “It was an amazing evening, Harry! Can we come back next week?!”

Harry chuckled and nodded, before ruffling his blond hair. “Of course, monkey! However, your grandmother needs to be okay with it as well, okay?”

“I’ll ask her. Tomorrow.”

“Harry, dear” Narcissa hugged him, before smiling. “It was such a lovely evening. What would you think about spending Christmas at mine? Richard wanted to see you two again. And I do believe that bringing him here, would be a little much.” She looked over to Dudley, who was looking from Theo to Blaise who were both fighting with conjured snowballs. When Harry turned to face her again, a snowball hit his cousin’s face and he shouted loud for both of them to stop, while Ginny and Pansy snickered about… something.

Smirking, Harry shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that.”

Narcissa’s mouth quirked up and she chuckled. “Well, it is your house…”

“Of course, Narcissa. We’ll be delighted to spend Christmas with you. Maybe not all of it, since I do believe we should welcome lonely people here as well. Christmas seemed to be a hard time for Slytherins.”

Draco’s mother smiled at him and nodded. “You have such a big heart, Harry. I am glad to see that it’s rubbing off on Draco as well.”

Andromeda bid goodbye as well and they all left. Harry stood there, looking at the chaos that Theo and Blaise, alongside Greg and George were starting, and decided to head back into the kitchen. When he pushed the door open, Hermione had her face buried in her hands and Draco was rubbing her back compassionately.

When he saw Harry enter, Draco frowned at him. “I now officially hate your former best friend. Impregnating a woman and throwing her out?!”

Harry simply shook his head. He sat down on the opposite side of Draco and placed his hand on Hermione’s arm. She inhaled and sighed.

“I don’t know what to do or where to stay!”

Before Harry could say anything, his fiancé started speaking right away. “You stay here!”

When Hermione seemingly wanted to argue, he shook his head. “I do not accept any other possibility. Especially since you’re pregnant. You need as little stress as possible and help with everything. If you stay here… I can’t promise you no stress, but a lot of help. And I do own an apothecary, which means easy access to anything that could help you through the pregnancy. If you decide to keep the baby.”

Harry turned to look at his best friend, silently asking her if she wanted to get rid of the baby and if she wanted to stay here. He was sure that Hermione knew exactly what he wanted to ask her. Being on the run with someone for almost a year weirdly enough made you get to know someone on a deeper level. Harry knew that Draco was sometimes quite jealous at how accurate Hermione could guess what he was going through or thinking. It took him half a year to get to that level. Which was still impressive.

“You guys really don’t mind me staying here?”

Draco smirked and Harry chuckled. He squeezed her arm and smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Hermione. People stay over here all the time. For all kind of lengths. You are welcome to stay for as long as you want to.”

“Thank you guys!” She finally smiled again. “At least now, I can finally live with having a little Weasley boy inside. I don’t think I’ll get rid of him or her. It was Ron’s mistake not the child’s.”

Harry nodded and got up. He took out a cup of the cupboard and made tea for Hermione, when Draco frowned. “You’re not just saying it because we talked you into it, right?”

Hermione smirked and shook her head. “I’ve always wanted a child, now I got my wishes. Maybe next time, I should take a careful look at the husband.”

Draco nodded slowly and was just about to say something, when someone knocked at the kitchen door. That someone turned out to be Blaise. He smiled at everyone and greeted Hermione.

“Hi guys, we’re actually leaving right now. Dudley needs to open up the gym tomorrow and Monday is always freaking busy after the Advent Sunday. So many people have been guilty eating cake and cookies, that we sometimes don’t have space for everyone” he explained and waved at Hermione and Draco.

Harry smiled at him. “Of course, Blaise. I’m coming to say goodbye in a second.”

The Slytherin nodded and disappeared. Draco grabbed the tea and a box of Christmas cookies, while Harry headed out of the kitchen towards the entrance hall.

“It was fun, guys!” He smiled at his cousin and one of his friends.

“Amen!” Blaise shouted and his voice was echoing through the hall.

It actually awakened Walburga Black and she called for some peace and quiet in her house. Harry chuckled at Dudley’s surprised expression. He looked up and saw the painting staring back at him and was just about to freak out, when the Black ancestor smiled at him and nodded, before leaving her frame.

“What was THAT!” Dudley asked loudly.

Blaise’s question however was something Harry could actually answer. “Wait, she has another portrait?!”

Harry nodded and grinned. “At Gringott’s, there’s a vault with all the family portraits. They go there most of the time at Christmas time. Walburga likes the quiet here – though only when no one’s home.”

Dudley looked from Harry to Blaise and sighed. “So, it’s a normal wizard thing?”

“Yes, honey.”

Harry grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “It was nice to catch up with you again, Dudley. Maybe we can see each other more frequently?”

His cousin agreed and they parted ways. Harry walked back into the living room, looking at the people that were left. Pansy’s parents were just saying goodbye and thanking Draco, who had left the kitchen, for their hospitality. And Ginny’s team mates also left the party, though on their brooms and out the living room window.

That left the people that had been living here for a few days or weeks: Theo, Ginny and Mil. Well, Pansy was also living here, even though she had her very own one-room-apartment, however, she seemed to like staying in Ginny’s room. Theo walked Hermione up to a room Draco had offered her and George and Angelina joined them rather quickly as well. Harry looked around the almost deserted room and counted the people that were currently living under his roof: including Draco and him, it was up to ten people. Well, he had once housed thirteen Slytherins, so that wasn’t all that much but it came close.

“Hey Harry, I think I’ll head home as well.”

When he turned around he saw Greg and nodded at him. “We’ll see each other around, I guess.”

Nodding, Greg hugged him, Ginny and Pansy, and high-fived Draco and Mil before going home through the floo. Pansy and Ginny retired to the Gryffindor’s room and Mil helped cleaning up everything, before heading to their room as well.

“That was one hell of a crazy evening” Harry remarked when he grabbed another fruit tea for a calm evening or rather night with his fiancé.

Draco nodded and fell down on the chair. “If you wanted me to tell you a detail from this evening… I can’t decide which one’s worth mentioning.”

Harry chuckled and kissed Draco slowly. “My detail would be your freaking handsome looks!”

“You know just how to flatter me, Potter” Draco smirked, before grabbing his wrist and pulling him onto his lap. “And I fucking love you.”

“I fucking love you as well, Malfoy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for keeing you waiting, but most of you had the correct idea... I think I would freak out if I had another person but Dudley there xD Luckily, I hadn't.  
Next chapter might take another week, but now you have your answer (and the second part of the feast).


	5. Chapter 5

Harry got up and yawned. Weirdly enough, he could see the sun shining through the blinds and he rubbed his eyes, wondering what time it was. He checked the alarm clock and sighed. He had overslept. Without hurry, he got up and dressed. Just as he was about to leave for work, Draco walked in and shoved him back onto the bed.

“Dray! I need to go to work, love!”

His fiancé shook his head and smirked. “No you don’t. You’re sick today. Don’t you feel absolutely sick?!”

Harry chuckled and shook his head, however, still relaxing into the bed sheets, with Draco pushing his shoulders down. “You did not tell my boss that I’m sick again, did you?”

“Of course not!” Draco was still smirking. “I drank your Polyjuice Potion and the new potion George invented to see if you could look sick and I went to work _for you_. It took only ten minutes for your boss to send me or rather _you_ home. So… you’re sick today.”

“That is some fucked up level of getting me a day off!”

Draco grinned, climbed on top of him and kissed him deeply, before taking off his Auror robe. “You’re welcome by the way.”

Smirking, Harry shook his head and yawned. “Darling, maybe there was something wrong with the Polyjuice Potion and you looked sick because you pretended to be me.”

“Of course I was sick pretending to be you!” Draco chuckled. He exited the room, while Harry shook his head, trying not to be offended by that comment. As if Draco felt that Harry wasn’t happy with that comment, he walked back in and brought some pancakes into the room which he had probably been hiding next to the door. “I mean, who wouldn’t?! I tried to talk to Kingsley and by the time I reached him I had to hide from not two, not three, but _five_ of your fan clubs, six people wanted to get some autographs and a new mother tried to get me to kiss her baby. Did she not see that I… I mean you… were sick?! Who’s that mother?!”

Harry burst out laughing and sat on the bed Indian style before accepting pancakes and coffee. Oh how he would have loved to be there and see Draco pretending to be him trying to get around all of his fame. It had started to get better but there were days like this, where you had no idea if these people had been hiding under a rock for the last decade.

“So what you’re telling me is that you understand how my life sometimes gets a little nerve-racking?”

“No.”

Harry raised his eyebrows and wordlessly ate another piece of pancake, while Draco fell into bed next to him. He had missed Harry’s lap and crawled towards him – very much not sexy – to finally place his head on his lap. When Draco was finally happy, Harry chuckled about it and simply shrugged his shoulders.

For the longest time, they just stayed like this, Harry eating breakfast, Draco lying on the bed, sneaking small pieces of his fiancé’s breakfast and both seemed to try and be the person who could hold the silence the longest.

Draco sighed after about five minutes and shook his head. “Okay, your life is a mess, dear. At least you have us Slytherins to keep you in check and tell you what you’re worth.”

“And… what am I worth to you?” Harry asked while raising his eyebrows once more. This sounded more negative than something he would have wanted to hear. Draco sat up and carefully brushed some hair out of Harry’s face, before cupping his cheeks.

“Everything” he whispered before kissing him softly.

Harry smiled and snuggled into his fiancé’s hug. It was weird how his thoughts travelled not to Draco, but to Ron. If he could have seen this situation, maybe… Sighing, Harry hid his face in his lover’s chest. Ron was never going to back down from his stance. After Christmas and New Year, he had told everyone to stay away from him, as he apparently was the only sane person of his friends. This scene wouldn’t convince him that Harry was indeed happy with the Slytherin traitor Draco Malfoy…

Shaking his head, Harry decided to stay in the presence. “So, to what do I owe this pleasure of being sick? It’s not every day that you grant me a day off.”

Draco laughed and shook his head as well. “Love, you’re not even working full time. When was the last day you were working?”

Harry grinned, but rolled his eyes. He decided not to answer and that seemed to be exactly what Draco had wanted, since he chuckled and closed his eyes again.

Taking another pancake, he decided to change the topic entirely. “Just so you know, I have an idea of what I want to do in the future; I just have no idea how to do it…”

Before he had even stopped talking, Draco was sitting on the bed next to him with big eyes. “Are you sure?! You know what you want to do? That’s fantastic! What is it?”

“Patience, Draco! Patience” Harry was laughing and smirked over Draco’s enthusiasm even though he had no idea if his idea was even good or not. On the other hand, he was Harry Potter so he could have done anything and it would have been amazing for most people. “I’m not ready to share, yet. I need time to think over how I can work with my idea or if it’s for the trash…”

Draco shook his head and divided the pancake, since it was the last one, eating it quickly.

“Ya Hahy heaking Boha…”

Harry burst out laughing and pushed his fiancé away, telling him to swallow before talking. “Didn’t your parents teach you manners, Malfoy?!”

Draco looked up, surprised and shocked to find that one Harry Potter had better manners than him, who was actually trained to have good manners ever since he could walk and swallowed the pancake quickly.

“Now what’s with the boa-snake?” Harry inquired smirking.

His fiancé simply rolled his eyes. “You’re Harry freaking Potter, my love. If anyone can do something, it would be you. Well… except getting your best friend to be on your side.”

“Ouch!” Harry stared at his fiancé, unable to believe that Draco had said something like that as if it was the information that it was sadly still raining outside.

Shrugging his shoulders, Draco got up and cleaned up the mess from their breakfast. “Am I wrong, love?”

Harry growled and rolled his eyes. Not even granting Draco an answer, he gathered the plates himself and they walked down into the kitchen through the extremely quiet house. Harry frowned and looked around. All the rooms seemed to be empty and even Walburga wasn’t in her frame, screaming around the house.

“Draco, do you know where everyone went to?”

His fiancé yawned and nodded, brewing them another pot of coffee. He held up his fingers and counted everyone who lived in their house and where they went. “Your best friend Hermione had a meeting with the doctors… to see if the baby was doing fine, I suppose. Mil and Theo went with her. Ginny’s having another training session; they’re playing the States in two weeks. And we both know where Pansy went and George and Angelina are looking at two houses outside of London.”

Harry stood still in the kitchen, accepting the expertly brewed cup of coffee. “Are you telling me, that we’re alone?”

Draco smirked and nodded. Harry chuckled and rolled his eyes.

“Oh my god, Draco! I have no idea what to talk to you about, when we’re alone!”

Concealing his laughter, Harry’s fiancé adjusted his expression to the one Harry was wearing. His eyes big of shock, sorrow filling his word and trembling slightly, he leaned forward on the chair. “Oh no! Our relationship! Falling to pieces right in front of us!”

“Getting flooded with the realization that we can’t exist if we have to live with just each other!” Harry jumped in and threw his hand towards the ceiling, almost letting go of the cup of coffee and spilling it everything.

Draco seemingly wanted to outdo his fiancé and climbed the kitchen chair, holding his heart as if he had been fatally shot. “Having lived with so many people our entire relationship that we drifted apart like two wooden sticks in the endless ocean separated by two tides. Not even knowing about our fate until we were alone and could finally speak to each other after having spent years on years discussion nothing of any importance.”

Harry was literally rolling on the floor laughing by the time Draco finished, coffee spilled on the ground, but they were interrupted by another voice.

“What’s Draco doing on the kitchen chair? And why’s Harry on the floor in the dirt?”

Harry was too occupied laughing, but he still recognized Greg’s voice and tried to quickly brush the tears out of his face, while Draco jumped off the chair, greeting their relationship savior, Greg.

“Morning, Greg! How are you doing?” Draco asked, throwing Harry an evil glare. Well, as well as a tea towel so he would clean the coffee off the floor.

Greg shook his head, looking from Draco to Harry, who had finally calmed down enough, to sit down next to his fiancé, drinking another cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.

“You two are the worst! It’s like leaving children alone at home, honestly…”

Harry chuckled. “Thanks, Greg. I mean, Angelina compared us to two chimpanzees.”

As if that had awoken a memory, Draco turned to Harry and narrowed his eyes. “You promised me to show me chimpanzees, one of these days! I mean, we’re both free today, do you think we can go to the zoo, today?!”

When Harry looked over to Greg, he saw him smirking a little. Harry had to admit, they probably were children. However, he liked his crazy ‘family’ and wouldn’t have changed it for anything.

“Of course, love. Let’s wait for Hermione to come back, so we can all go. She’s better at explaining everything about some animal than I am” Harry offered.

Draco smiled and leaned over to kiss him gently. “What if I don’t want to listen to her? What if I want to listen to you stammer around and ending up reading to card that’s in front of all the animal cages as unobtrusive as possible, so you can pretend to know everything about said animal?”

Greg burst out laughing and Harry narrowed his eyes. “How come you already have such an incredibly detailed idea of what is going to happen?”

“No idea. Must have been a dream I had.”

Harry grinned and turned to Draco fully. “You know what? Instead of being overly dramatic we could have used this time alone to do other things.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Draco snorted, turning back to Greg. However, before he could start talking, Greg waved another person into the room.

The person walking in was a platinum blonde girl with moss green eyes and clothes that were very old. In fact, the young woman was nervously playing with a snag and trying to hide it even though her clothes were replete with it.

Draco seemed to recognize her immediately and Harry had to admit that she looked familiar, but he couldn’t figure out how and why.

“Tracey Davis! What happened to you?!” Harry’s fiancé walked over, while grabbing a warm blanket, which he put over her shoulders.

Harry frowned slightly. That name told him something, but he couldn’t really put his finger on it, until he realized that there was a Slytherin in his year, who basically never said a thing. She always looked like a clone or Draco’s twin sister. That must have been Tracey Davis! But why did she look like she had been living under a bridge for the past few years?

Draco guided the young woman towards the table, where Harry got two more cups, pouring coffee into them and turning around to make tea. Greg walked over to the fridge and grabbed something to eat for her. She did look a little malnourished.

Over the next hour, Harry, Draco and Greg got to hear her story. She hadn’t returned to Hogwarts after the war and since she had no degree, she hadn’t gotten any job. Even the Muggle world had turned its back towards her, which made her start living under a bridge. Begging for food and a place to live, she had barely gotten through life. And this morning, Greg had found her, begging for something to eat.

“I couldn’t let her stay in the cold, so I decided to bring her to the place where I got back on my feet” Greg explained and motioned towards Harry and Draco.

Tracey narrowed her eyes and Harry was sure that she wasn’t really keen on staying here. However, honestly, if people hadn’t known anything about their relationship and then found themselves living under the roof of two arch nemeses… things are bound to go wrong.

As if Draco realized Harry’s thoughts, he got up and grabbed some chocolate cookies to eat, which he placed in front of Tracey, only to sit back on Harry’s lap and kissing him on his cheeks. “You can stay here for as long as you want to.”

Harry grinned at his fiancé and turned towards Tracey. “That’s what we tell everyone who comes in here.”

Before he could keep talking, Tracey frowned at him. “And what do people have to do to stay here?”

“Getting back on their feet or enjoying life.” Harry offered. He was sure Tracey didn’t believe him, so he turned back to Greg, being happy that there was someone else who could help convince the Slytherin that they didn’t want anything from their guests.

Greg nodded at Tracey and smiled. “Tracey, I know you don’t really believe them, I wouldn’t neither if I haven’t seen their transformation from strangers to lovers in a few months. The only thing they want from us is that we realize that life isn’t as bad as we think it is. You know, before I started living here, I was selling my body.” He huffed, not really happy with this memory. “And it was exactly as terrible as you think it was! I ended up running into Draco, who took me to his place. But I ended up running away and stuff like that.”

Harry smiled at Greg, when he looked over. He had heard the story a few times, but it was always interesting how he became a better person because of him and Draco. Tracey had followed the gazes and frowned again.

“So, Draco kept looking for me and when he moved into this place with Harry, he found me again and brought me here, where I kind of ended up staying. Harry gave me back my self esteem and Draco got me a job in his pharmacy, where I still work ‘till this day.” Greg ended his explanation and looked at Tracey. “They never wanted anything from me, but that I started living the best possible life. And I sometimes stay over here if everything’s too much for me. A lot of people do actually.”

Their newest guest turned to Harry and frowned again. “And why are there only Slytherins?”

Harry chuckled a little. “Well, that’s only right now. Hermione Granger, George Weasley, Angelina Johnson and Ginny Weasley live here as well. Until a few weeks ago, my Gryffindors didn’t even know that I was dating Draco.”

“That you’re _engaged_ to Draco Malfoy!” Harry’s fiancé said holding his hand with the ring into the air, while Harry smirked at him.

Tracey seemed to realize that they weren’t about to do something to her and she smiled weakly. Greg got up and held out his hand. “Let me show you the guest room where you can stay and sleep for now. If you’re feeling better… the kitchen is the best place to look for people in this house.”

Harry wanted to say something against that, but he knew that Greg was right. If you were looking for people… The kitchen was the first place to look, next to the living room and Draco’s lab.

When Tracey was gone, Harry frowned and looked at his fiancé on his lap. “Is it bad if I actually forgot that she existed?” he asked, feeling a little guilty.

Draco smiled and kissed him softly. “Yes.”

“Hey!”

Harry tried to throw Draco off his lap, but the Slytherin had a better tactic and they both ended up on the floor, Draco on top of Harry, kissing him senseless until the world ended. Well, actually only until the door opened and three more people walked in.

Mil, Theo and Hermione walked into the kitchen, stopping at the sight of Harry being pinned down by Draco.

“Did we walk in at a bad time?” Mil asked smirking slightly.

Draco looked up and Harry followed his gaze, grinning stupidly.

“Yes, actually it’s a very bad time. We had absolutely no time to ourselves this morning” Draco whined and Harry couldn’t stop laughing. He rolled out of Draco’s grasp, and pulled him to his feet.

“Which is nobody’s fault, but yours, love” he smirked.

Draco frowned at Harry and shook his head. “Mine? Why is it my fault?!”

“Because you had to go off and tell Kingsley that I was sick! I could have done it in seconds. And you didn’t wake me up. If you had woken me, we could have had a little time for ourselves.”

“I do not accept this view on things.”

“Well, too bad!” Harry smirked. He then turned to his best friend. “So, how’s the baby?”

Hermione smiled and hugged her Slytherins, who were standing next to her. “Everything’s great. The doctor thought I was a surrogate for the two lovebirds here.”

Theo blushed violently, while Mil laughed and shook their head. “As if!” they exclaimed and kissed Hermione’s cheek. “You’re still amazing!”

“Thanks, Mil!”

Theo sighed. “Just for the record, I want to say that I wasn’t flirting with Mil!”

“Yeah, we know. You were flirting with ‘Mione” Mil answered and grinned, when both, Theo and Hermione, blushed slightly.

Harry looked over to Draco and grinned. The Slytherin smirked and threw his hands in the air, being overly dramatic as he was today. “Ah, young love!”

“Shut it, Malfoy!” Theo hissed and walked out the room, Hermione being so red you could compare her to a tomato, followed shortly after. She made a point however, of walking up the stairs rather loudly, while Theo possibly walked into the living room.

Mil smirked and winked at Draco. “They could not keep their eyes off of each other. I’m pretty sure the doctor wasn’t talking about me and Theo being partners but those two.”

Harry grinned slightly. To think that Hermione had been staying here for only three weeks and Theo was already so smitten – which yes, everyone could see. He tried to help her in every way he could, which also included driving her to the doctor.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure if Theo was just trying to help Hermione because he wanted to be there for a pregnant woman, since his wife was having a baby and it wasn’t his, but he decided to keep this for himself. Hermione needed a little help and Theo didn’t seem to be ready to confront his problems, yet.

Draco had probably come to the same conclusion and grabbed some chocolate from his cupboard, when Greg walked back inside the kitchen. He frowned at the people inside and raised his eyebrows.

“Why is Hermione in her room again and Theo in the living room watching TV as if his life depended on it?” he asked curiously.

“Draco confronted them for being in love and both claimed not to be smitten, however their reaction clearly showed their intent. So they’re trying to show us – by being in different rooms – that they don’t feel anything for each other” Mil explained and Draco smirked.

Greg only rolled his eyes and sighed. He turned to Draco, shaking his head, but not actually saying anything. Once he had his stare down with Draco – and actually lost – he turned around and yelled through the house, even though the person he wanted to talk to was in the next room.

Harry smirked, when the house even shook slightly. Having lived here for over four months, Greg knew exactly how to work the house in his favor. Well, except for Kreacher who hated all loud noises now that he was quite old.

“THEODORE NOTT, GET YOUR DIRTY ASS DOWN FROM HERMIONE GRANGER’S ROOM AND COME DOWN TO THE KITCHEN, WE NEED TO FINALLY TALK ABOUT BEES AND…”

“I’m here! I’m here!” Theo burst into the kitchen and almost punched Greg in his quite smug face.

The two friends stared at each other and Greg shrugged his shoulders after a few seconds. “It’s time to go to work, my dear friend.”

Theo sighed and rubbed his temples. “How high is the possibility that not everyone in this house heard Greg screaming?”

The smug faces around the room let the Slytherin know that said possibility was probably almost nonexistent. Accepting his defeat, he followed his colleague through the house and towards Draco’s pharmacy.

Draco thoughtfully turned towards his grinning fiancé. “Did your parents ever give you the talk?”

Chuckling, Harry took the chocolate out of Draco’s grasp and put it back into his cupboard. They were eating lunch shortly, so he really shouldn’t be eating now. Especially with their late breakfast.

“Do you really think that my aunt and uncle gave me the talk? Or wait, did you mean my parents sat me down when I was one year old and told me everything about…”

Draco snickered and shook his head. “Sorry love, I was clearly not thinking.”

“No you weren’t.” Harry smirked and kissed his fiancé, turning his back towards him to grab something to cook for his huge family. He was sure that Draco was already sneaking over to his cupboard to grab the chocolate, but he didn’t need to give him a guilty conscience over something so insignificant.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been three months since Christmas and since Hermione had moved in and Harry was as sure as he was with Ginny and Pansy, that Theo and Hermione had an actual thing going on. Over the time, the Slytherin had started to accept that his first marriage hadn’t been great and he even questioned for himself if he was helping Hermione out of his own guilty conscience. Luckily for everyone involved, it turned out that he did actually like her very much.

You could find the two of them talking in hushed voices in the living room, while others were watching TV, reading a book in the kitchen or flying a spaceship to cloud nine. Well… not literally.

The other inhabitants of Grimmauld Place had also slowly started to find a new live source. Tracey had finally found a job in the Muggle world as a waitress in a small French restaurant, which everyone frequented a lot after she started working there, and George and Angelina had found a house right outside of London and Harry had been waiting for an owl to tell all of them that the baby had arrived every second of every day now.

Pansy and Ginny spent all their free time together and even talked about moving in together. Not actually into Pansy’s one-room-apartment, but into a slightly bigger one. They also wanted to have at least two guest rooms for people who needed a sort of time out. Draco had requested a fine for using their idea; however, Harry was sure that this idea existed before the two of them had gotten together.

And so it all started with a dinner in the middle of April. Harry had cooked Lasagna, which Blaise loved to death and he had come over with Dudley to meet his friends again. Pansy and Ginny were setting the table, while Theo cleaned the kitchen, since Harry had allegedly killed the cow for the meat himself in there. Hermione read a book about motherhood on a rocking chair in the corner of the living room and Tracey was starting a machine with some dirty clothes. Mil went through the wine assortment in the basement and finally brought up a red Nero d'Avola from Sicily. 

“It’s much quieter now” Dudley remarked, when he walked into the kitchen, where Harry opened the wine and took out a few wine glasses.

Harry smirked and offered his cousin a glass of wine. “That’s because Christmas is a crazy time here around. How much did you hear from Blaise about the people we keep around the house?”

His cousin shrugged his shoulders and frowned. “Not much, honestly. He only told me that he once lived here for about six months.”

Nodding, Harry remembered how Draco once brought the other Slytherin home – almost starved to death, clearly beaten up and with a scar on his forearm, resembling the Death Eater mark. Someone must have cut it into his skin. It had taken Blaise a long time until he was back joking and having fun. The scar remained and Draco along with Greg and Theo had tried everything in their knowledge to remove it, but it stayed and by now Blaise was okay not looking at it.

“Well, to keep it short” Harry grinned slightly. “Grimmauld Place is a house for everyone who needs to feel and get better. So we always have people over who want to get back on their feet. Some stay overnight, others decide to live here indefinitely. Christmas is always the time where a lot of people feel scared or pressured and they all decide to come and stay here.”

“And you don’t care?”

Harry was unable to speak, as Theo, who finally finished cleaning the kitchen, turned towards him. “Come on, mate! He’s the Holy Hero! His heart’s so big we can neither see a beginning nor an end. Everyone’s welcomed!”

“That’s disgusting, Nott!” Draco called over from the living room and walked in a second later, eyes sparkling when he saw his favorite wine.

Harry quickly poured him a glass and smiled at his fiancé, when he smelled the red wine first, before tasting it with closed eyes. His wine obsession was never getting old, even if Harry himself never really liked wine. But watching Draco enjoy a good glass of wine was infinitely better than that.

Dudley grinned and shook his head. “I think I would freak out if I always had people over. How can you even be sure that… I don’t know. That your man…”

“Stays faithful?” Draco offered helpfully and smirked when he saw the slightly panicked facial expression of their guest.

Harry really wanted to say something to calm his cousin down, but one look at Draco told him that he would be extremely mad if he wouldn’t get to have just a little fun. Shrugging his shoulders, Harry decided to let Dudley suffer a little longer.

“No…! No, that is definitely not what I meant!” Dudley looked around the room, clearly trying to find his boyfriend, who was being drawn into a discussion at the other end of the house with Hermione about something…

Draco raised his eyebrows, which most of their friends knew was clearly meant playfully. However, an already scared Dudley, and Muggle on top of that, who was aware that everyone in this room could do magic, did not realize that. After two long and quiet minutes, where Dudley desperately tried to get to say something nice and Draco wordlessly destroyed all his attempts, Harry finally jumped in to save his cousin from his clearly not really evil fiancé.

“Dudley, Draco’s joking. Now, what is it you want me to ask about my man while being surrounded with people?” Harry said quickly and seeing the happy expression on his cousin and the slightly sour expression of Draco… he was sure that he needed to talk to his fiancé about this again.

“How can you two be sure that you even like each other’s company? You’re never alone!” Dudley finally asked.

Harry chuckled and looked over to Draco who had stopped in the middle of his action. The wine glass at the bottom of his lips, his eyes looking back at Harry, full of love and sparkling with mischief. Harry knew he had to act quickly, otherwise Draco, and Theo probably as well, would and they would possibly convince Dudley that they didn’t know each other very well.

Taking his cousin away from the Slytherin and into the living room, he answered rather quickly. “Dudley, we do spend time alone and just so you know, I don’t think Draco would have asked me to marry him if we wouldn’t know each other that well.”

His fiancé appeared next to them and chuckled. “And Harry would have never said yes, if he didn’t know me that well!”

“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure” Hermione said and smirked at the three men standing there. She had gotten up from her rocking chair and walked towards the kitchen entrance, where she had probably heard all of them talking. “Harry had always been a hotheaded man. And I don’t know if you remember, Draco, but he was almost obsessed with you during Hogwarts!”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I was not obsessed!”

Apparently, Hermione and Draco had decided to be a new team, since his fiancé turned on him, grinning from ear to ear. “Oh, but you were obsessed, love! As was I, by the way.”

Dudley, who was standing in the middle of Harry and Draco, looked between them and then to Hermione. “I have no idea what’s going on… So, you liked each other in school?”

“Oh no, Dudley!” Hermione answered and laughed. “These two were mortal enemies and now we all know why, at least.”

Without waiting for another answer, she grabbed Dudley and walked him back to the kitchen, promising him a lot of stories about Harry’s and Draco’s rivalry in Hogwarts and Dudley followed rather quickly.

At the set table, Pansy and Ginny were mixing some unknown substance into the salad and Harry frowned, but didn’t say anything. He also decided not to eat any kind of salad tonight. Tracey just entered the room and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Dudley.

“Why is there a Muggle around us?” she asked cautiously.

Harry chuckled. “Tracey, this is my cousin Dudley. He’s also Blaise’s boyfriend, which is why he’s here.”

“Blaise has a Muggle boyfriend? Wow!”

Nodding, Harry turned to Dudley, who had just come back into the living room. “Dudley, this is Tracey, she’s the newest addition to this family.”

Dudley held out his hand and Tracey greeted him rather quickly as well. She was still apparently confused as to why Blaise would have a Muggle boyfriend and Harry knew that his Slytherin friend was actually thrown out of the house because he had shown interest in Muggle men. His parents weren’t happy with him being gay, but actually having a Muggle marrying a pureblood… They apparently wouldn’t accept that Blaise was about to step into the Muggle world himself.

Not that Harry would have cared. All the people in this house were amazing and he loved them all to pieces! Not literally, but still.

Finally, once everything was done, Dudley had heard a lot of stories about the hatred between Draco and Harry, Pansy and Ginny had stopped spiking the salad with… something and everyone sat around the table, the meal was ready to start. Harry was sure as hell not going to eat any salad and once everyone’s ears started growing into donkey ears, Harry shook his head. Well, other people transformed their mouths or they got grey fur everywhere.

Turning a questioning and rather demanding glance at Pansy and Ginny, the two girls shrugged their shoulders and snickered.

“George wants us to try his newest product. It’s called ‘scream like a donkey’ and you can take the powder to any part of the donkey and put it into something to eat and whoever eats it, transforms into a donkey” Ginny explained and grinned at Theo, who was staring at his growing mouth and nose around a donkey mouth.

Harry shook his head and rubbed his temples. “Make it stop, guys!”

Pansy smirked. “Can’t. The antidote is in one of the salads, I just don’t remember which one. So you have to take a bit of everything…”

Before she could stop explaining, the people around the table stormed the different salads. Well, everyone except the three unaffected and untransformed humans.

“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you can make people eat salad!” Pansy shouted over the chaos.

Harry stared at her and shook his head. “In order for them to transform, they already had to have eaten the spiked salad, guys…”

Ginny and Pansy didn’t seem to realize that they had made a mistake and finally, everyone at the table had turned back into normal humans. Draco glared at his best friend and grabbed all the salad, which he had made and went into the kitchen. Harry sighed and grabbed the one salad which was left and followed his fiancé. Even though it probably didn’t look that way, Draco had put a lot of effort into those salads and for Ginny and Pansy to just destroy them… he knew that his fiancé was fighting a little with himself.

Closing the kitchen door behind him, he walked up to Draco, who was holding onto the counter as if his life depended on it. Most of the salad was spilled on the floor, the counter and the washbasin.

“Draco?”

His fiancé didn’t react, so Harry put the salad down and put his arms around the Slytherin’s waist, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Dray, love. They didn’t mean to get you down, hon” he said quietly and kissed his temples.

Draco sighed and leaned into Harry’s chest. “I know. It’s just… I don’t know why it gets me.”

Harry smiled and nuzzled his fiancé’s neck. Draco finally turned and hid his face in Harry’s chest, calming down completely. Gently swaying from one side to the other, Harry hummed some tunes that came into mind, not even an actual song and Draco inhaled deeply.

“We both know that Pansy sometimes gets taken away while playing a prank, love. Don’t you remember when she linked the toilet water to the rainwater and we watered the plants with…”

Draco held Harry’s mouth closed and glared at him. “Don’t you say it! I still haven’t forgiven her for that spectacle!”

Harry chuckled and drew his fiancé even closer. They stayed like this, until Draco decided to speak up again. “I hate this side of me” he murmured and looked up into Harry’s eyes.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry chuckled lightly. “Oh dear, it’s actually something I like about you. Well, not you taking it personally when someone destroys something important. But I like how organized you are and that you take pride in doing something special.”

“Salad’s not special.”

Harry gently kissed Draco and rolled his eyes. “You are special and I love you. Now go out there and tell Ginny and Pansy that they have to do two weeks’ worth of…”

“Detention?” Draco offered grinning slightly.

“House work.” Harry rolled his eyes, but was happy to see his fiancé enjoying himself again. “And while you do that, I’ll clean up the kitchen.”

His fiancé was now smiling and placed another peck on Harry’s lips. “I love you, Harry Potter.” He walked out grinning and closed the door loudly for the people at the table to look at him.

Still smirking, Harry quickly cast a cleaning charm over the kitchen, threw out all the salads and took a few tomatoes out of the fridge which he then decorated with some left over mozzarella, a few drops of olive oil, salt and pepper and walked out of the kitchen with it.

At the table, Ginny and Pansy looked a little sour, but everything else was normal. He placed his own salad down and was happy to see that his guests (and especially Draco) still enjoyed the time spent together.

The very next thing that happened was that Mil announced they would be leaving again. “I’m actually feeling better again and I do have to check my plants. I think some of those might have died over Christmas.”

“You mean the small grayish looking palm tree you keep in the living room?” Theo asked smirking slightly.

Mil grinned back. “Yes. And by the way, need I remind you that in Hogwarts a _cactus_ dried in your dorm?”

Theo shut up pretty much as quick as he had tried to joke with Mil and everyone at the table laughed. Well, except Theo and Hermione who shot him a sympathetic look.

“Anyway! I’m going home tomorrow, but you all are amazing!” Mil said and grinned at everyone. Harry really could tell that they had gotten a lot better since the last time they had stood on the doorstep, hoping to get some down time.

Draco smiled at them. “It’s been fun having you here. And you know, you are always welcomed back!”

After dinner, Pansy and Ginny were placed inside the kitchen, while the rest gathered around the TV, which Harry had only bought after Draco had basically forced him to do so (his tactic being withdrawing sex and it had only taken two weeks full of frustrations, when Harry had gone and bought a TV, while Draco was working).

However, instead of enjoying a relaxing evening, a surprise guest suddenly walked out of the fire place. It lit up, right when Harry walked through the living room towards the TV room, with a bowl full of popcorn, and he stopped, frowning at the person walking out of the fire.

He was surprised beyond everything when he was suddenly face to face with Neville. He looked grieve stricken, tired and Harry suddenly smelled a very distinct smell… It looked like… no it smelled like Neville hadn’t had a shower for the past two weeks. The other man also seemed to be surprised to find Harry standing in the room.

“So it’s true!”

“Travelling with the floo? I guess it is true… we’ve been doing it since we were… in Hogwarts” Harry answered and frowned slightly.

Neville presented Harry with a small smirk. “No, you buffoon. You actually live in Grimmauld Place accepting people to live here?”

Harry looked around, however, it was only them staying in the living room. How would Neville figure that out from… just looking at him?

“And you could see this how? Did you develop a third all seeing eye?”

“Yes, because that was my favorite class at Hogwarts.” Neville grinned, rolling his eyes, while Harry chuckled.

He finally placed the popcorn on the table, walked around it and hugged his friend (trying his hardest to ignore the smell which was clearly coming from said man).

“Long time, no see, Neville! How have you been?”

The other Gryffindor sighed. “Not so good, honestly. I feel like my life has hit a wall and I have no idea where to go and what to do now. My Gran died three weeks ago and they ransacked her place, I had nowhere to go.”

Harry frowned. “Who’s _they_?”

“The Ministry. Apparently, she owned them money. But I can’t really go around saying that she’d never accept that money…”

Both were quiet for a while, Harry not really sure what to make with that, Neville probably still in his memories. That was until Theo walked into the living room and sighed dramatically.

“I thought you died on the way to the TV room, mate! Are you taking any longer or can I take the popcorn with me, before we start eating each other?” he asked smirking, before he saw Neville.

“Um… hi” Neville smiled sheepishly which reminded Harry a lot of their first year.

Theo grinned and laughed then. “Hell yes! Even more Gryffindors!”

Harry shook his head and chuckled. “Ignore him” he told Neville and looked at him. He suddenly saw three bags stacked behind him, before he could say more, Draco walked into the room.

“Harry, Love, have you seen… Oh” Harry’s fiancé had seen Neville and offered him a quite sincere smile. “Hello Neville.” There was a quiet break, before he started talking again. “I would say ‘Nice to see you’, but since I have no idea what level of friendliness you expect from me… I might actually just stay quiet.”

Shaking his head, Harry smirked at his future husband. “Really, Draco? This is you staying quiet?”

Theo, who apparently had enough of their discussion, simply grabbed the popcorn and left again. Draco shrugged his shoulders.

Neville grinned. “It’s okay. Nice to see you’ve changed, Draco.”

Being dramatic, as a certain Draco Malfoy was, he presented their new guest with a mocked bow and smiled sweetly. “I do what I can to please our guests.”

“Please don’t.” Harry grinned and got Draco to stick out his tongue in his direction.

Neville chuckled and shook his head. “You two are quite the pair.”

“Oh you have no idea!” Ginny said loudly, while walking through the living room with Pansy in tow. Neville looked after them and frowned then. Before he could ask anything, Draco was already next to Harry and him.

He grabbed his stuff and they walked towards the stairs. “So I guess you’d like to stay over?” he asked.

Neville blushed slightly and nodded. “I have nowhere to go and no idea what to do with my life!”

“We get that a lot” Draco smirked and they walked up three flights of stairs, before stopping in front of a previously unused room. “Make yourself at home, mate.”

Neville walked in and it looked like he had seen heaven somewhere inside his room. Harry chuckled and turned around to look at his fiancé, when he saw a small devilish expression on his face.

“Just a few house rules, man” Draco started and held up his fingers. Harry frowned. House rules? “First of all: If you live here, you help with the house work. Second: We eat dinner together – usually. Third…”

“You are totally making up house rules, Draco” Harry interrupted him and shook his head.

Draco glared at him and sighed. “We have always had these house rules, Potter. Just because you don’t remember them doesn’t mean they don’t exist!” He held up his three fingers again and continued.

“Third: If you have to cook, never conjure food. It tastes like shit. Literally.”

Harry shook his head in a silent comment that this wasn’t the case. Draco must have seen him, since he shoved him back a little.

“Oh and by the way, Neville, if you open the door and there’s a nice sales person outside, don’t let them in!” Draco said, visibly trying to hide the smirk that was finding its way on his face. Harry knew immediately that he was trying to trick his friend into… something.

Neville frowned as he put down all his bags. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that man is a vampire!”

“Draco, no! We talked about this! I told you, if that sales man was a vampire, you would be one too!” Harry rolled his eyes. Draco had always offered up the weirdest explanation as to why that man was a vampire, just because he had once gotten into Pansy’s private book collection about vampire lovers. Nothing had been the same after that.

Harry’s fiancé turned to him and shrugged his shoulders. “I am about ten thousand percent sure that he’s a vampire.”

“Love, you can only be one hundred percent sure and that’s the maximum.”

Neville grinned, as Draco shook his head. “I know hon! That’s why I’m ten thousand percent sure!”

Harry knew very well that Draco’s and his discussion always were funny and that most of their guests loved to be around them because they tended to be overly dramatic (Draco) and in the moment. Neville also seemed to be quite happy and it looked like he hadn’t smiled for over three months. Seeing him smile now was what made Harry happy the most.

“Well, Neville. I’ll leave you to it. Just remember, don’t open the door! We also have a very lovely neighboring couple, which I am convinced both of them are werewolves, but…”

Harry shook his head and sighed loudly. So loud in fact, that whatever Draco wanted to say couldn’t be heard. Neville was already chuckling.

“Draco, no!”

“I’m not a dog, but ‘Draco Yes’!”

Yes, his fiancé had definitely read too many Muggle books that Pansy and Ginny in fact had brought over. And yes, some of those might have been Greg’s as well and Harry was sure that Draco owned some, which he had hidden somewhere in this house. It was always the cheesy love stories, sometimes women and men, sometimes those were even gay books, which Harry actually would have wanted to read, but decided not to pour oil into the fire.

“There are no werewolves around; we live in Muggle London, the sales man is not a vampire and the Queen of England isn’t being mind controlled by Aliens!”

Draco rolled his eyes, but smirked nonetheless. “That wasn’t my point, Greg made that point once.”

“Not. The. Point. Draco!”

As if his fiancé wanted to get all if his suspicions out of his system, he walked closer to Neville and told him as quietly as possible – as if he wanted to keep it a secret from everyone “And by the way, you shouldn’t trust those food delivers! I’m quite certain they’re fairies waiting to get your name to…”

Harry grabbed Draco by the ear and dragged him away from his friend, shaking his head, while his fiancé tried to hex him, however from the angle they were at, he only got a chair, a table and the bed; not Harry.

Neville seemed to be actually happy to be here. He laughed and gave Harry a hug (which made him let go of Draco), probably not sure whether Draco still didn’t like physical contact, or if he actually would have been fine with a hug. “You two are the best and I’m glad I heard of your house! Please tell me I can stay here for a while!”

Harry would have loved to answer, but Draco was much quicker than him. “I’ll tell you what we’ve told everyone here: You can stay as long as you want to!”


	7. Chapter 7

“Draco?!” Harry called through the rather quiet house and rolled his eyes, when two other voices – clearly not Draco, but Neville and Theo – called back. Actually, these two hit it off almost immediately. They seemed to be made for each other – best friends to be exact. It was funny how both of them seemed to gravitate towards each other and it hadn’t taken much (a bath for Neville and making pancakes for Theo) until they were inseparable. 

However, now, there was also Draco’s voice who called from one of the upper floors.

“Who is it?”

For a split second Harry thought about calling himself Neville or Theo, but he simply rolled his eyes. “Who do you think it is?!”

“The Easter Bunny!” Neville called out of the living room.

“Father Christmas!” was Theo’s suggestion.

Harry huffed and shook his head. He looked up towards Walburga’s portrait and as she raised her eyebrows, he shrugged his shoulders and nodded then. If Draco didn’t want to come down when Harry was calling for him… maybe Walburga could bring him down.

“DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY, YOU ARE REQUESTED TO WALK DOWN THOSE DIRTY WOODEN STAIRS, CLEAN YOURSELF UP AND APPEAR IN FRONT OF THIS HOUSES MASTER OF ALL THINGS MAGICAL! YOUR PRESENCE IS DEMANDED BY NONE OTHER THAN YOUR FIANCÉ, HARRY JAMES POTTER, THE BOY WHO LIVED AND…”

“I got it!” Draco rolled his eyes and nearly fell down the last few steps right into Harry’s arms. “Did you have to ask Walburga to scream the house down?”

Harry grinned at Draco and shrugged his shoulders. “When I called for you, Neville and Theo answered and you traitor asked me who was calling for you!”

Draco smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “Do I look as if I cared?”

“Well, do I look as if I cared that Walburga screamed the house down?” He turned towards the painting, nodding at her, silently thanking her for bringing his fiancé to the ground floor.

Sighing, Draco accepted his defeat, grinning at Harry. “Okay then, my love. Why did you call me?”

“Teddy’s coming over today and Andromeda told me to tell you that if Teddy learns anything from you… and we both know what she means by that…” he gave his fiancé a meaningful look. Last time Teddy had come over, Draco had shown him how to encase things with bubbles and his little godson having no control over his magic yet, accidentally encased Andromeda in a bubble. “If something like that happens again, he will not be allowed over, ever again. And you know me, Draco dear. I will kill you!”

Draco only chuckled, but he held his hand up. “I’m sorry, love. I know he means everything to you and I promise not to teach him anything else that’s as easily detectable as this.”

“Draco!”

The Slytherin shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, love! That’s my duty as Teddy’s… godfather fiancé – to teach him a few tricks that can help him in the future.”

“Encasing things with bubbles isn’t something he can use in the future!” Harry argued and rolled his eyes.

“Of course it is!” Draco objected.

Harry put his arms at his hips and raised his eyebrows. “Oh really?! When was the last time, you had to encase something with a floating pink bubble?” 

Draco’s slightly evil smirk made him pause and then throw the closest thing to him – a vase with three roses inside – towards his fiancé. “Don’t you dare!”

If the doorbell hadn’t suddenly sounded, Harry was sure Draco would have encased him in a pink, floating bubble and probably would have let him inside said bubble for the better part of a day. Opening the door, Harry was met with two more Gryffindors. Seamus and Dean stood there, looking like actual Muggles and smiled at him shyly.

“Hey Harry” Seamus greeted him and Dean nodded silently.

Harry felt Draco sneaking closer and he smiled at them. “Hi guys. Everything okay? Would you like to come in?”

Seamus nodded and as Harry stepped out of the way, his two friends entered the house. They saw Draco lurking around by the staircase and Dean grinned suddenly. Seamus seemed to think something like that as well.

“So the rumors are true? You have an army of Slytherins in your house?” he asked and laughed, when Dean shoved him slightly.

Draco chuckled and stepped closer. “Not so much an army anymore. I think we might have more Gryffindors here than Slytherins.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Seamus asked mockingly.

Draco seemed to jump onto the bandwagon and sighed. “Terrible! There’s no one here to understand my references!”

“References to what? TV series, inside jokes or the time you got stuck on a toilet?” Harry asked smirking.

Draco only glared at him, while Seamus burst out laughing. Harry’s gaze wandered over Dean, who hadn’t said a thing until now and his friend seemed to have seen his look.

Seamus sighed and nodded towards his best friend. “We’re looking for a place where we could stay for a few weeks and for Dean to get better.”

“What happened?” Draco wondered and Harry even saw a slightly worried face on his fiancé. He quickly turned back to Dean who put an arm around his friend.

“Some Muggles came at us in a park and I don’t know exactly what happened, but Dean hasn’t been talking since. The doctors say it’s mutism or something. No one could help him until now. I just want him to get better” Seamus explained and placed a kiss on Dean’s temple.

Harry’s gaze flickered to Draco and then back to his friends. “In that case, you are very welcomed to stay here. Do you have more stuff? Anything we need to get for you?”

His two friends were standing there with only one bag over Seamus’ shoulders, nothing more. Seamus only shook his head. “We never really settled anywhere. Yesterday, we lost our apartment and we’ve been looking for a place to stay ever since.”

Suddenly, Harry heard some footsteps above his head and when they looked up, Hermione walked down the stairs, smiling at their old friends. “Hi guys! I haven’t seen you in a while now! How have you been?”

Seamus explained to Hermione once again, what happened to them – in more details. Apparently, they walked into the park where some homophobic people had been staying and they attacked both of them rather quick.

“It’s called total mutism” Hermione explained and hugged Dean tightly. “And you know what? You can breathe now. These guys wouldn’t let anyone hurt their guests.”

She was the one who had to know about it. Two days ago, Ron had tried to get through the floo, however, Harry had placed a blockade, if Ron or the Weasley patriarch ever tried to come here. So, Harry's former best friend had tried to get in using the front door. Lucky for him, no one was home and the Ministry caught him rather quickly. They didn't charge him though, since he was an Auror and he claimed to be doing Auror business. Harry didn't like this one bit and if Hermione, who was now four or five months pregnant, was home alone... what would Ron have done to her?!

“Damn right you are!” Draco said loudly and shook his head. He then motioned the two newcomers up the stairs. “Come along, I’ll show you your room, if you’d be interested.”

The new Gryffindors all followed Draco up the stairs while Harry sighed and turned towards the kitchen, walking through the living room with Hermione in tow. Someone – his guess was on Pansy and Ginny – was making chocolate cake, which was now in the oven and there was a spell in place, which was cleaning the used dishes. Harry grabbed some pumpkin juice and two glasses.

“Do you know anything about mutism?” he asked his best friend while pouring them some juice.

Hermione sighed and shook her head. “I know what it takes for Muggles to get mutism. I’m not sure if it’s relevant for wizards. There are some different types of mutism: selective, which means you chose not to talk to certain people or in certain situations…”

“What do you mean by ‘choose’?”

Hermione frowned. “I don’t really remember, but I don’t think it’s like an active choice. Anyway, the other type is total mutism, which is mostly common with brain damage.”

Harry played with his glass, not really in the mood of drinking anything. “How do you know that much about mutism?”

“My cousin was mute for a while, following a car accident” Hermione simply explained.

Frowning, Harry looked up at his best friend and narrowed his eyes. “Why did you never say anything about that?”

“Harry, we were on the run when that happened. I only heard about it after the Battle of Hogwarts. And I do believe we all had way too much on our hands during these days!”

Nodding, Harry remembered the time after the war. There were so many people waiting for him to do an interview that Hermione scheduled his life for the first two months; they all did one interview a day with a different newspaper and Harry had an additional two interviews alone. He had helped to rebuild Hogwarts, finding common ground with Pansy who needed to rebuild the school as a way to get out of Azkaban. He had needed to be present for all the Death Eater trials and his voice had saved many, but imprisoned even more of Voldemort’s followers. When the eighth year at Hogwarts letter came, he had decided to ignore school and follow his idea of becoming an Auror, which the Ministry accepted gladly. Not before throwing him on the cover of every Wizarding newsletter in existence. After he had decided to become an Auror, he hadn’t had a free day. In fact, only two years after the Battle, had he finally had a day off. Which he had spent sleeping.

“You are probably right. As always, Hermione” Harry smirked slightly. He then turned back to the topic at hand. “So, since you know that much about mutism, is there anything we can do? Do you think Dean has brain damage?”

Shaking her head, she sighed. “We don’t know if the people in the park actually hit them and Dean lost his speech because of that. I don’t think that’s the case. I think it has something to do with everything becoming too much. So, them being here is actually a very good decision.”

Harry frowned. “What do you mean by ‘everything’s becoming too much’?”

Before Hermione could answer, Draco walked into the kitchen with wide eyes. “Salazar’s snake, I totally forgot what happened to Dean two months ago!”

Harry narrowed his eyes, trying his hardest to think about what happened to his friend. And very suddenly, it hit him. The Aurors had been talking about it, since a Death Eater, who was extremely lucky, had managed to stay in the dark and he had tried to get his hands on Harry (which he had stated when they had caught him). Since he never actually got to him, he decided to target someone else, who had also fought the Dark Lord. It had turned out to be Dean and the Death Eater killed his entire family. Dean had been lucky (if you could call it that), since he was staying at a friend’s house at the time. Having seen his entire family murdered, could surely shut you up…

“Holy shit, I totally forgot” Harry said and rubbed his eyes. There was so much going on that he had actually forgotten about that…

Hermione nodded while Draco made some tea and sat down next to Harry, rubbing his tense back. “Yeah, I normally like to joke around but with these two, I just didn’t know what I could say and what would be too much” Draco explained, sighing slightly.

“Some topics just aren’t working for a joke” Hermione agreed. Harry simply nodded.

Harry would have loved for Dean to be able to ‘talk’ with someone who had somehow gone through the same experience. However, nobody here had lived through the same. Theo and Greg were both ignored by their parents. Blaise had been disowned and thrown out of the house, Draco still had his mother and Pansy chose to disassociate herself with her family; Mil had also been thrown out of their family. Tracy had lived a rough life, but her family hadn’t been murdered by a Death Eater. The Gryffindor side wasn’t much different. Hermione and Ginny had decided to leave their families behind; the only person that could remotely help Dean would be Neville, as his Grandmother just died and his parents were also not getting any better.

“Well, maybe only being here will help him to gain back a little bit of speech” Harry though and sighed then. The other two people inside the kitchen nodded.

Suddenly, a small, grey owl flew towards the window and knocked. Harry looked up surprised, but Draco opened the window, since he was the closest to it and the owl gave him a list, over which he was smiling.

While the owl disappeared, Draco turned to his future husband and his best friend. “By the way, I ordered twenty pounds of chocolate, as you do.”

Harry shook his head as if he needed to clear his brain to understand the message, his fiancé had just said. “Draco… Nobody orders twenty pounds of chocolate… Where did you even order that?”

“Owl delivery.”

There was a stunned silence in which Harry tried to get rid of the picture of an owl with twenty pounds of chocolate around its foot. He was not going to laugh at the ridiculous level his future husband was at right now.

“You know, now you could add ‘as you do’. Most witches and wizards choose owl delivery” Hermione mentioned and smirked into her cup of tea.

Harry glared at her, but Draco apparently agreed to what she had just said. “Owl delivery, dear. _As you do_.”

“Where the hell did you even find a place to order twenty pounds of chocolate from?!” Harry inquired and shook his head.

Without even a second of hesitation, Draco answered. “Connor’s Chocolate Cooperative.”

Hermione burst out laughing, while Harry let out a frustrated sigh. “This is unbelievable, Draco! Why exactly did you order twenty pounds of chocolate?”

“Because we’re always running out of chocolate. Everyone in this household loves it to death and yes, Hermione, I saw you sneak two chocolate bars into your room after dinner yesterday!”

Harry’s friend turned a little red, but she shrugged her shoulders. “I needed it! I’m also pregnant, so I can eat whatever I want to. Don’t make me feel bad about it, Draco!”

Hermione looked as if she was ready to destroy whatever Harry’s fiancé would be saying towards her, but he actually just agreed. And with that their argument was settled again.

The only thing Harry could do was shake his head. “You could have at least bought it from different people, so that there isn’t an owl flying around with _twenty pounds_ of weight on its foot.”

“Potter!” Harry frowned. Whenever Draco used his last name, he was either extremely mad or pissed off or trying too hard to go through with a joke that Harry tried to destroy. “What do you think ‘cooperative’ stands for?!”

“Factory?”

Hermione seemed to take pity on him and explained it, before Draco could freak out over his nonexistent knowledge. “It’s a lot of different people working together, Harry. So theoretically, even though Draco ordered twenty pounds from one place, his order’s probably being split into a few smaller bites for different places.”

It was quiet in the kitchen again. Hermione and Draco silently drinking their tea, however, Harry had another thought that he needed to say. “Well, then. When does the delivery arrive?”

While Draco answered with something, Harry’s attention was suddenly drawn outside. He saw a huge number of owls at the horizon and stood up, clearing everything from the kitchen. “You know what? I think I need to buy… some more soft drinks. Neville asked for a coke and I realize we don’t have that here. Hermione, care to join me?”

His best friend was a little surprised and was just about to say something, possible deny his offer, when he motioned his head towards the window. He caught her opening her eyes in surprise for just a second, before she got up as well, pretending nothing had happened.

“As a matter of fact, I think I need to get something for the baby as well. We should go right this second.”

“Definitely.”

Without another word, both left the kitchen and ignored Draco, who was calling after them, being a little surprised at their hasty exit. Theo was just walking down the stairs, when he saw them grabbing jackets and asked them, what they were doing.

Instead if an answer, Hermione grabbed his jacket as well and took his hand, walking outside. Once they were a few houses away from Grimmauld Place, they could actually hear a lot of wings in the air. Theo, who had the jacket on, frowned and looked up. Harry followed his gaze and smirked. There were about twenty five owls, different colors, different sizes, all carrying something big around their foot.

“Please tell me all of these owls aren’t going towards Grimmauld Place” Theo said, when he turned back to Hermione and Harry. Both Gryffindors were grinning and Harry laughed loudly.

Draco would have his hands full with these owls. Maybe this would teach him not to buy some twenty pounds of chocolate! Even if it was very much what people loved to eat in Grimmauld Place.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t know what was going on” Harry remarked and they walked towards the store around the corner.

Theo shook his head, still not really believing what he had just seen. “Why would anyone get about twenty owls?”

Hermione laughed and tucked her arm into Theo’s. “This is nothing, Theo! After the war, I got about forty owls a day and I have no idea how many Harry got.”

“I would say… close to sixty or seventy. It got so bad that the Ministry handed out fines for people writing me letters. Which in turn was a bad idea for them as everyone was writing me letters through the Ministry then” Harry chuckled, when he remembered how pissed off everyone was when another twenty owls arrived with fan mail for Harry.

Theo was clearly surprised and shook his head. “Okay, so what happened today? I don’t think that’s fan mail, right? This era has come to an end, I guess?”

“I still get fan mail” Harry smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Right now, it’s from students who read my chapter in their history books and the professors who tell them to write me a letter. But no, this is Draco’s owl delivered chocolate.”

Theo stopped dead in his track a few feet away from the entrance to the Muggle shop. “Oh no! He… did he… did he actually order fifteen pounds of chocolate, as he said he would?”

He looked from Harry to Hermione with wide eyes. Both couldn’t held in their laughter. “No Theo. He ordered twenty!”

“By Salazar! That man has no idea what he’s doing, does he?!”

“No” Hermione and Harry answered at the same time, grinning at each other.

“He also hasn’t an idea what a mess twenty five owls are going to make” Harry grinned as he shoved his friends into the small corner shop.

In all honesty, Harry was hoping that the people in his house would stay in their rooms until Draco was done with all the owls, however, these many owls could be loud and he was sure that some interested Gryffindors or Slytherins would be peaking into the kitchen. Maybe they needed to stay here for a little while longer.

After twenty minutes, where Theo had bought a lot of sweets, Hermione some more milk and orange juice and Harry coke, flavored water and some chocolate (just to irk Draco), they walked back. Before they even walked into Grimmauld Place, they saw Neville and Tracey outside, laughing loudly. Greg and Blaise sat on the front step, frowning inside and Draco was just shooing the last owl away.

When his fiancé saw Harry, he narrowed his eyes. “So! You decide to leave the party just before thousands of owls appear? Not suspicious at all, Potter.”

Harry chuckled. “Well, _Malfoy_, it’s an art form I call ‘knowing when to go into hiding’. Saved my life thousands of times. Including this one.”

Draco turned to Theo, still visibly annoyed. “And where have you gone?!”

“Hermione told me she needed to buy some milk, so I decided to tag along” Theo explained, with a wide smirk on his face, that was clear to everyone that he either knew about the owls or was dragged along by Hermione so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the owls.

“Liar!” Draco called out and rolled his eyes.

Harry smirked and took out the chocolate bar of his bag. “Look, dear, I even thought of you and bought you some chocolate at the corner shop.”

Everyone who was watching the scene play out burst out laughing, while Draco stomped into the house and banged the door to the kitchen. By now, even the people who had slept through the owl invasion would have probably woken up.

Theo smirked at Harry. “I think you probably have to talk to that future husband of yours, before he destroys the kitchen. There’s still the farewell cake from Pansy and Ginny in the oven.”

Harry grinned back and nodded, throwing the chocolate bar towards Greg who caught it and split it in half for Blaise as well. He grabbed the milk and orange juice from Hermione and walked to the kitchen himself. On the stairs inside were Dean and Seamus, looking a little surprised.

“Hey guys. Everything okay?” Harry asked, while stopping in front of them.

Dean had his head hidden in the crook of Seamus’ neck, while the other man was hugging him tightly. “We were just wondering what in Godric’s name was going on here!”

Harry chuckled and rolled his eyes. He quickly told them the story of Draco ordering twenty pounds of chocolate and the owl invasion, before he assured them that there was nothing bad happening and that he was just on his way to talk to his fiancé.

Dean looked a little more at ease and Seamus relaxed as well. Harry nodded at the two of them and walked to the kitchen, knocking at the door, before he entered.

“Draco, love…” he stopped dead in his track, looking at what had once been his kitchen. It was a picture for the ages. The window was open – unhinged, the lovely yellowy wallpaper being scratched by thousands of claws, the wooden table suffered the same fate, though it didn’t look as bad as the partly torn off wall. Pots and pans were scattered around the floor, but the worst…

“Holy… shit.”

Draco looked up from where he was standing and narrowed his eyes. He relaxed rather quickly and sighed then. “You know what? I will never do owl delivery ever again.”

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “One owl isn’t too bad… Draco, darling, could you clean up the mess, please?”

“Mess? What mess?” Draco grinned suddenly, being back in his world of sass and jokes. “That is creativity scattered around the room.”

“Yeah… your creativity looks a lot like owl shit.”

“It’s creative painting!”

“Well, can you please be _creative_ away from here?! And clean up the owl shit. Oh, I’m sorry: your _creative painting_.”

Harry smirked and took out his wand. He repaired the pots and pans and the wallpaper. Draco sighed and followed suit by removing the owl shit and repairing the window. In no time, the kitchen was back to its former… not really glory. The rest of the people living in this house, poured into the kitchen, congratulating them both for their work. The table still had some claw marks, but Harry decided to let it stay this way, since it gave the table a little bit more character.

A second later, the fire place sounded a familiar voice was calling out for “Haaaaaaaarryyyy!” Harry smirked and left the kitchen to greet Andromeda as well as Teddy. Draco brought some tea and cookies and greeted the two as well.

Apparently, Draco had mentioned to Andromeda that Harry knew what he wanted to work on, so now he had to tell her. Harry was sure that Draco did that, because he wouldn’t tell him what his idea was. Andromeda had just been better at getting secrets out of him.

“Okay, so you know how when you transform into an Animagus you lose all your clothes? Because you transform and they don’t?” Harry asked and looked from Draco to Andromeda. Both Slytherins silently nodded, which made him continue. “Sirius had some sort of a coat that he could wear, which transformed with him into his fur. I thought it should be possible to do that with all clothing, so that people aren’t just butt naked when they want to be people again. I’m thinking about all of our undercover Aurors who need to go and find their clothes, before they can arrest people. It should be easier than that.”

Draco and Andromeda were quiet for a second, before both of them were freaking out over his idea. Andromeda asked herself how she hadn’t had that idea and Draco was already thinking about the fabric that could be useful.

Harry chuckled and rolled his eyes. “You two are just the worst! Go home, Andromeda and Draco, I think I saw some more…”

“Already on it!” Draco interrupted him and charged out of the room. Teddy laughed and ran after him, while Andromeda shook her head and bid goodbye.


	8. Chapter 8

The doorbell rang and Harry got up from where Theo and Neville were playing wizard’s chess. Harry had always liked to watch his chess pieces argue with _other_ players than him. It made him feel as if he wasn’t the only idiot in his chess pieces’ eyes. He walked by the kitchen where Ginny, Pansy and Tracey carefully worked through everything in the fridge and the storage and threw out the things that weren’t good anymore. Apparently, even though the two of them now had an apartment, they still loved to be here. In the staircase, Teddy was whining to Draco about not wanting to go home (Andromeda had already allowed him to stay one more week instead of two weeks) and Walburga tried her best to help his fiancé to calm down his godson.

Yawning, Harry opened the door, just to find Narcissa standing there. “Oh… um… hi.” He was suddenly highly awake. “Hi Narcissa. How are you doing? Come on in!”

He briefly wondered why she hadn’t come by using the floo, when he saw Richard walking up the steps behind her. The middle aged man had slightly grey hair, was wearing a nice bluish black jacket and had a tie. All of this seemed a little overdone for the man who was normally wearing jeans and t-shirts with funny-ish sentences. He smiled at Harry and it made his laughter lines show, which Harry had always appreciated. The older man had the same kind of humor than all the Malfoys (and Harry, though he'd had to develop his humor with a little Malfoy help).

“Hi Richard…” Harry turned to face Narcissa, questioning why she would bring him around. Especially now that there was a kid crying around in the staircase and a freaking _portrait_ talking to him…

Narcissa smiled warmly. “I have to admit, Harry, Richard asked me to marry him and I wanted to show him exactly what I have been hiding from him all this time. And you know, telling him what he was getting into if he still wanted to marry me after this day.”

Harry smiled broadly. “Well, congratulations!” He hugged his future… father-in-law and chuckled. That was probably why he was dressed way over what he was comfortable with. “Well, you’re in for a treat, Richard! Come on in!”

The two guests walked inside and the first thing Richard probably saw was a child whining to Draco and Walburga talking loudly to make Teddy listen to her. Harry was watching his facial expression like a hawk but nothing seemed to happen.

Teddy on the other hand had apparently realized that his biggest fan had arrived. “Cissa!” he called out and launched himself from the staircase towards Draco’s mother. Since Andromeda always called Narcissa ‘Cissa’, he had changed her name as well, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Hello Teddy, how are you doing?” she asked and smiled at him, before introducing Richard to Teddy.

“Can I call you Rich? Are you rich?” Teddy asked innocently.

“EDWARD REMUS LUPIN, YOU CANNOT JUST CHANGE PEOPLE’S NAMES!” Walburga screamed at the wall and Teddy crossed his arms over his chest.

“I thought you liked the name ‘Wally’!” he screamed back.

Richard finally seemed to realize that something wasn’t normal, when he looked from Teddy to the portrait, which was rolling its eyes by now. He seemed to want to say something, but shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Draco finally arrived and welcomed them as well, showing them the living room.

“So, how long have you been living here?” Richard asked Harry, looking around rather interested.

Harry smiled. “The house belonged to my godfather and he left it to me when he died. I moved in shortly after the war ended.” Too late did he realize that Richard, being a Muggle, probably never really realized that there was a war…

And indeed, he turned around and frowned slightly. “What war?”

Harry looked over to Narcissa, but if she had been listening – which he was sure she was – she didn’t have anything against him knowing of any war. Draco, who stood next to Harry, smiled at his stepfather.

“The Second Wizarding War.”

Richard was still frowning and shook his head slightly. “You mean the Second World War?”

Before anyone could explain anything to him, Theo’s surprised shout brought the attention to the two chess players. “Oh come on! How did you do that?! I had everything under control!” Theo frowned and rubbed his face, clearly way too deep into the game to notice anything else.

Neville had apparently had a good move and his opponent clearly had some problems with that. Grinning, the Gryffindor silently shrugged his shoulders.

“If I were you, I’d suggest E6 to G7” Theo’s knight suggested.

“Please!” the Queen argued and if she could, she would have probably rolled her eyes. “It’s quite clear to me: F2 to C5!”

Theo looked rather frantically around his board and shook his head, until the rook decided to speak up as well.

“If it were up to me, H3 to H8 for a rook ending.”

Richard frowned and turned to Narcissa, who smiled at Theo. “Are the… chess pieces talking?”

“All the time” Harry answered and chuckled. “Sometimes they scream at you from the box because they haven’t been played for a while. It’s an old set” he said as if this explanation was clear to everyone – including Muggle. However, Richard looked from Narcissa to Harry and frowned.

“I’m a little confused, what exactly is going on?” he asked and raised his eyebrows.

Narcissa smiled at him. “Well, dear. This is something I wanted to tell you about for a long time but I never knew how to tell you…”

“That you have talking chess pieces?” Richard asked and looked at the chess board, where Theo decided to move a pawn, while the other chess pieces groaned with frustration.

“No, dear. That I am a witch.”

Richard looked back at Draco’s mother and frowned. “A witch? And why are we here? Are we surrounded by wizards and…” his eyes suddenly grew big and he looked from Harry to Draco. “You guys are wizards, then?” he asked and looked back at the chess board.

Before anyone could even attempt to say something, the fire place lit up and Greg walked out with an arm full of red roses. Richard opened his eyes in shock and shook his head then. He had probably not thought that this could be possible… even though he had seen talking chess pieces not a minute ago.

“I brought roses, everyone!” Greg yelled as soon as he had reached the living room, suddenly standing still. He had probably seen Narcissa and Richard and smiled at them then. “Hello Narcissa!” he greeted Draco’s mother, who Harry realized all of a sudden had turned into pretty much the mother for everyone here. Greg nodded at Richard. “You must be Narcissa’s special man! I’m Gregory Goyle, but people call me Greg.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Richard Carlton” he greeted him back, but pointed at the roses. “And why exactly do you have roses with you?”

Grinning from ear to ear, Greg replied quickly. “They were on sale and it upsets people if I give their boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancés, husbands, wives roses. So I like to do it. As a matter of fact, Narcissa!” He held a rose towards her, which she accepted, chuckling slightly.

Teddy jumped towards the Slytherin and held out his hands. “Greg! Can I have a rose too, can I? Can I?”

Handing Harry’s godson a small rose, Greg smirked at him. “Of course, little one!”

“I’m not little! Granny Andy says I am very big for my age!” Teddy crossed his arms in front of his chest, however, with a rose in his hands, he looked as if he was waiting for his future wife (or husband), because he found them cheating.

Greg laughed. “Oh yes, you are big! You should stop sneaking chocolate between meals.”

Draco cleared his throat and Harry knew that his fiancé was just warning his friend of something, but he couldn’t resist his instincts.

“Don’t tell my godson what he can and can’t eat, Greg” Harry said a little too harsh, which he did realize. He rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen, before he would explode in front of Narcissa’s boyfriend. Not that he felt himself explode; it was more something of a security measure. However, he didn’t stay there that long, walking back with a plate of chocolate cookies and a lot of tea and cups floating behind him. Ginny and Pansy were still going through the fridge and he felt that if he was staying in his kitchen longer, that they would definitely tell him to go and do something.

In the living room, Narcissa and Richard were sitting at the table, Greg and his roses next to the Muggle guest and Draco on the other side next to his mother. Apparently, Richard had started to accept the craziness going on around him, which was extremely surprising to Harry.

He let the cups float to the table and set down the chocolate cookies and tea, when Richard looked at him again.

“Did you just let cups fly?” he asked clearly surprised.

Harry smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “That’s something we learn in first year. I can also make them dance and sing. But the last time I did that, the neighboring dog started to howl, so they’re not really able to sing that well.”

“I’m telling you: the neighbor doesn’t have a dog!” Draco started again, which made Harry smack him with a napkin.

“Draco, the neighbor’s not a werewolf; we’ve been over this countless times!”

As if the chaos wasn’t already way too much with two people playing with talking chess pieces, a guy handing out roses to other’s loved once, a screaming boy not willing to go home (who had just decided to go into hiding in the house – with his rose) and a Muggle being introduced into a Wizarding household, Hermione walked into the living room with a parchment in her hands. It looked as if she had been crying and Harry turned to her immediately.

“What’s going on, ‘Mione?” Harry asked, closed the distance between them and frowned.

She sighed and showed him the parchment. It was the finalized divorce. Harry knew that Hermione and Ron had been fighting for over two months now about what would happen to their shared possessions. Right after Hermione had moved into Grimmauld Place, Ron had decided to send her the divorce papers, however, they hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion for a while and they had started to fight about it very quickly. It seemed as if they had finally reached an end.

Harry read over the papers, while he heard Richard talk to Narcissa and Greg about wizards and witches. Draco sometimes helped with explanations, but Harry’s attention was on the papers. They were bad. Really bad! Hermione basically wouldn’t get anything. It looked as if Ron had been able to afford a very good lawyer (Harry didn’t understand where he had gotten the money for that). And said lawyer took everything from Hermione that she had bought while married to Ron.

“The only thing he’s giving me is my baby.”

Harry looked up from the contract and shook his head. “Do not sign the papers, ‘Mione! He’s ripping you off! He’s taking everything from you!”

His best friend shrugged her shoulders. “The first draft told me to hand over my baby once she was born. I am not going to give him the satisfaction of taking and raising my child! He didn’t want anything to do with me; he should stay away from her as well! I’m going to sign the papers, if I can keep her. I don’t care what he gets.”

“He get’s everything, ‘Mione! That’s illegal!” Harry argued and looked over the parchments again.

Once again, Hermione shrugged her shoulders. “Harry, I can keep my baby. That is the most important thing to me. And maybe it’s illegal, maybe it’s not fair. I just need to know that my baby girl can grow up in a nurturing environment, where she can learn that it’s okay to love whoever she wants to. Whether she’s gay or straight, asexual or allosexual… I just want her to be herself! Ron can’t give her that, but I know I can do that.”

Harry was quiet and nodded then. She was right, of course. Ron was going to tell his girl that her mother abandoned her to be with weird people. Hermione would be a very nurturing mother and he was sure as hell to give her as much help as she needed. He also knew that Theo was going to be an amazing step father. Even though it wasn’t his child and yes, they had no proof how he was with small children, but Teddy loved him to death.

As if the two of them suddenly realized that there were no more sounds around them, they turned towards the people sitting in the living room. Theo and Neville had stopped playing; looking at Hermione (the chess pieces surprisingly quiet as well) and Draco, Greg and Narcissa were watching them as well. Richard was frowning slightly and turned from watching Narcissa and Hermione.

Harry’s best friend smiled at all of them and walked closer to the table and greeted Richard. “Hi, you must be Richard, Narcissa’s plus one. I’m Hermione.”

“Nice to meet you” Richard answered and pointed towards the parchment, which was still in Harry’s hands. “What’s this story all about?”

“My soon to be ex-husband. I’m really looking forward to that” she even managed to smirk a little. “In a nutshell: There were just way too many disagreements and we decided to split.”

Richard nodded and shrugged his shoulders. “I hope your future will be better than that.”

Harry grinned a little. Richard seemed to handle it better than Harry would have ever guessed. Hermione nodded, while Harry handed back her divorce papers. He was happy for her, since she was finally done with Ron’s bullshit. However, at the same time, he would have wanted her to get more than just the baby. She had earned money during their marriage as well. A lot of her money had been involved in buying the house and now Ron wasn’t only getting the house but their money as well. It just wasn’t fair!

“Harry, promise me something!” Hermione said, before leaving the living room. Harry raised his eyebrows wordlessly, so she continued. “Do not go after Ron and try to talk him into giving me more! I’m happy with what I’ve got and I don’t want him to be able to take away my baby. Promise me!”

Sighing, he shook his head. Hermione did know him pretty well. He was already thinking of the best way to talk to Ron… “I promise.”

Hermione wasn’t convinced and pointed at Draco. Harry huffed and nodded. She did know him pretty well. “I swear in everything I hold dear – which is you, Draco – that I will not go and try to talk Ron into giving you more than you already have.”

“And you won’t be writing letters! No contact to him!” Hermione added.

Behind her back, Harry could see Draco silently laughing and he shook his head. “Yes, Hermione, I won’t contact him in any way possible – or impossible.”

“Thank you.” And with that she walked off – possibly to her bedroom or the small library she had been building in an unused guestroom. Harry shook his head, but most Slytherins in the room – Neville and Richard included – were either laughing, grinning or smirking.

Sitting down, next to his fiancé, Harry put his arm around Draco. The Slytherin grinned at him and kissed his cheeks. “That woman knows you even better than I do!”

“Yes, well. Starving together does that to you” Harry winked at Draco.

Before anyone could say something, Greg had gotten up and given Harry a rose. Extremely surprised, Harry accepted and turned frowning at Draco, when he saw his fiancé turn red and glare at Greg. Chuckling softly, Harry shook his head.

“I think we need to talk in another room!” Draco told Greg. He had gotten up and Harry had to take his arm away from Draco’s shoulder.

Theo was the one who answered. “Don’t use the TV room. Last time we had to buy a new one!”

“Kitchen is also not allowed!” Harry jumped in.

“I thought I raised you not to be that aggressive, Draco!” Narcissa said, eyes twinkling.

Draco turned to her, already calming down and chuckled. “You did, mother… I don’t think the other person in question did…”

Harry laughed and shook his head. Lucius probably wanted Draco to be aggressive. That way he could be dangerous, but should still obey the Dark Lord. Whatever Lucius was thinking about that…

Richard seemed to be interested; however, after almost everyone in the room shook their head to his asking gaze, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled slightly.

Luckily, for everyone involved, Draco’s and Greg’s angry discussion didn’t lead to anything as Theo and Neville ended the game (Neville winning quite glorious) and the Slytherin started a new topic.

“I was inspired by Mil, Pansy and Ginny and I think it’s time to move out as well” he said sighing. “I really don’t want to go, but I don’t think I can stay here forever. I’m moving out in two days.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. He just wanted to say that if he wanted to, he was very welcomed to stay forever. The words never left his mouth, as Draco was jumping towards his friend, on his knees.

“Noooooo! Theo! Don’t leave me! Tracey and I are the only Slytherins left, if you do! You can’t do that to your fellow former classmates!” he yelled, overly dramatic.

“Watch me!” Theo yelled as loud as Draco had and walked pass his friend, pretending to move out right this second.

“I will imprison you in our cellar!”

“You wouldn’t dare! I’m your childhood best friend!”

Draco scratched his head and turned to Harry rather quickly. “Potter, if you really love me, you have to imprison Theo in our cellar!”

Theo turned to him also rather quickly. “Potter, I know I don’t have that much power over you, but if you want to keep Slytherin acceptance, you are going to help me pack my things right now.”

Harry wasn’t much help, as he had started laughing rather quickly and he held up his hands in surrender. “I will do no such things!”

“YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE!” Draco screamed and ran into the kitchen.

“YOU’RE NO LONGER ACCEPTED IN THE SLYTHERIN TRIBE!” Theo yelled just as loudly, banged the door of the living room and ran up the stairs.

The only people remaining other than Harry were Narcissa (looking rather relaxed and smirking), Richard (looking scared and exhausted), Greg (laughing, having lost the roses on the floor) and Neville (shaking his head and grinning).

“There is so much dramatics around here. How do you stay so calm?” Neville asked, clearing the table of the chess pieces.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “It was a little hard at the beginning, but I actually just ignore them when they start to go nuts. Oh, and I know that Draco still loves me even though he screamed about hating me or doubting that I loved him.”

“You guys are weird” Neville smirked and walked out as well, saying he was going to try and find Teddy, since Andromeda was coming over later this afternoon to get Teddy home.

Richard sat at the table, probably silently questioning if his decision, marrying Narcissa, was going to be the right one, considering her family. Narcissa seemed to come to the same conclusion and chuckled.

“Well, dear. This is what you’re getting into.” She turned to Harry and smiled at him. “It’s not all days this bad, is it?”

Harry didn’t have enough time, as Greg laughed loudly and shook his head. “It’s always like that, Narcissa. You’re just not here often enough to know how bad it actually is.”

“Greg, you are one of our problems, here! Don’t you have to go home?” Harry asked grinning and rolled his eyes.

The Slytherin shrugged his shoulders. “I do actually. But don’t think I’m going home, because I want to! You see, there’s someone in this house I do kind of like…”

“Please tell me it’s not Hermione!”

Laughing, Greg shook his head. “I’m not going to compete with Theo! That man is a ten out a ten! Wouldn’t you agree?” He winked at Harry, who smirked.

“I have my own top ten list of men, thank you very much. Number one would be a certain blond Slytherin” Harry answered without having to think about it any longer.

Greg simply sighed and grabbed his roses. “You really are boring. I tell you another time, which girl I have a crush on. But she’s Slytherin, so no house rules are broken!”

With that he bowed shortly and vanished through the fire. Harry frowned and counted all the girls in his house… There were only two and one was Gryffindor. The other would be Tracey… The three people inside the living room were quiet, all lost in their own thoughts.

Finally, after a long pause, Richard finally seemed to be able to talk. “I am really confused.” He stopped talking again and raised his gaze, looking from Narcissa to Harry. “So… wizards and witches are real, I get that now.”

Narcissa nodded and Harry waited for something else that he clearly wanted to say.

Richard turned to Harry again. “And you guys have a house where you accept all kind of different people that… have lost their houses?”

“More or less. We accept everyone who feels lost somehow. In our early days we actively went hunting for lost classmates or other people. Now, they know that they can just come by and ask for a roof over their head and we provide that” Harry explained.

Once again, Richard nodded and smiled at him. “Very noble. So, where did you learn your magic? Do parents teach their children? Or is there something like a… kindergarten where they check for magic?”

“It’s a school actually. We get letters when we’re eleven and the very next thing you know is… Hogwarts.”

Richard frowned, but before Harry could explain more, Teddy ran into the room. “Hogwarts?! Anyone said Hogwarts?”

Smirking, Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, Teddy. Richard wanted to know more about it. Do you want to tell him all you know about it?”

Teddy nodded vigorously. He quickly started telling an almost lost Richard how Hogwarts started, explained all the different houses and all he knew about them. He knew Slytherin and Gryffindor the best, but also Ravenclaw, as Luna sometimes came by and the two of them used a lot of time talking about ghosts and Ravenclaw.

Richard now seemed to be very far out of his comfort zone, but the biggest thing that happened, was Teddy starting to talk about the Battle of Hogwarts. It was the child’s brain that made of an already quite incredible battle an even bigger one. He talked about unseen Thestrals, about spiders as high as houses, giants, dwarfs, centaurs and flying wizards. He talked about Neville killing snakes and Harry being dead.

Just as he mentioned Harry having died, Neville walked in, followed by Andromeda, who smiled at her grandchild. Richard, on the other hand, who had never heard of half the things Teddy had been talking, turned to Harry, eyebrows raised.

“That’s all in his mind, isn’t it? It’s not real?”

Smiling, Harry shrugged his shoulders. “A very wise man once told me that even if things are happening inside your head, doesn’t mean they’re not real. However, there was a thing called Battle of Hogwarts and I did indeed die there – for a moment.”

It was quiet for a second, before Teddy started talking to Andromeda about all the things they had seen and done in his holidays with Harry. Andromeda quickly bid goodbye to everyone so that Teddy could finally calm down again and Richard and Narcissa followed rather quickly as well. Richard had so many new informations that Narcissa figured he needed a few days to sleep on them.

There wasn’t much quiet, since Draco and Theo were still yelling at each other, from across the house. Dean and Seamus arrived, wondering about the topic and once Neville had told them everything, they grinned and walked into their room. Ginny and Pansy bid goodbye as well and abducted Tracey to their four bedroom apartment.

The second any silence was introduced into the house, the doorbell rang again. Harry sighed and got up, rubbing his head. There had been so much stuff happening today, that nothing would surprise him anything. Maybe someone had ordered Pizza or something…

When Harry opened the door, he was faced with Padma and Parvati and after a second of pure terror – remembering how he had treated them at Hogwarts – he stepped back. “Hey guys. Come on in!”

There was no time to talk, as Theo dashed down the stairs. He inhaled sharply and grinned. “Oh my! Even more Gryffindors! And a Ravenclaw! So rare!” He held his hand over his heart, as if he was pretending to either have a heart attack or whatever else he was showing.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Theo, stop screaming out that you love Gryffindors…”

“But I love a Gryffindor!” the Slytherin interrupted Harry.

“… and what are you even doing here? Haven’t you moved out twenty minutes ago?” Harry looked around trying to find a reason as to why he was still here.

“No, I only just told you I’d move out! Also, someone stole my styling iron! My guess is on DRACO MALFOY!”

“Yeah, I’m not even going to question that…” Harry turned back to Parvati and Padma and smiled at them, while Theo went looking for Harry’s fiancé. “Do you want to come in?”

Padma smiled and nodded. “We were wondering if we could spend the night here… Parvati’s husband has been beating her and we…”

“It’s nothing, really” Parvati interrupted her sister, looking at the floor.

Harry nodded at the two of them. “Of course. Please, come along, I’ll show you to your room. Do you want to have one room for the two of you or two separate ones?” 

Padma smiled at Harry and they followed him up the stairs. “One room will do. Thank you.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey, by any chance, does anybody here know where Narnia is?”

Harry looked up, frowning at the two Gryffindors that were standing in the doorway and put down the green salad he had been making. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Draco turning towards Seamus and Dean as well, though he looked rather pleased and had a small grin on his face.

“Narnia?” Harry asked. He turned towards Draco, making it obvious that something wasn’t right and asked again. “Why would you be looking for Narnia?!”

He already regretted reading all seven books about Narnia to his fiancé and the one with the wardrobe just kind of stuck to Draco. Apparently, he had to go around and tell people about Narnia. At least Hermione had been quick enough to realize that it was a story.

Dean and Seamus apparently didn’t get that, since Seamus started again. “Well, Draco told us that if we were lucky, we could even find Narnia in our wardrobe! I mean… Hell yes!”

“Seamus, Narnia doesn’t exist!” Harry rolled his eyes and threw Draco another glance. “And Draco, would you please stop telling all the new arrivals that they should look for Narnia?”

“Why, hun?” Draco flashed his most innocent smile at Harry and fluttered with his eyelids.

Harry shook his head and splashed some water at his fiancé. He then turned to his friends and sighed. However, before he could say something, Dean grinned as well.

“Don’t worry, Harry. I know Narnia doesn’t exist.”

“What?!” Seamus turned to his boyfriend, clearly unhappy with everything that had happened until now. “And why would you let me rummage through the wardrobe as if I had to look for my own life spirit?! Come on, that’s just not fair!”

The people inside the kitchen were all laughing, including a very unhappy Seamus. However, suddenly, everyone was quiet again and turned towards Dean.

“You’re talking!” Harry said and smiled broadly. Dean blushed and looked towards the floor, while Seamus hugged him closely.

“Seamus, can you finish the salad? I need to look for Padma and Parvati, making sure that they’re not looking for Narnia.”

Draco huffed. “I haven’t told _them_ about Narnia, yet. I was thinking about going with something else. I’m still debating whether the Polar Express would be something believable or if I should say that there are tiny people living in our kitchen that only show when no one’s inside.”

Seamus burst out laughing and shook his head, clearly forgotten that he was angry at Draco a few seconds earlier. “Why don’t you tell them that the neighbor’s a werewolf?”

“Why are we getting married, Draco?!” Harry asked under his breath, though his fiancé clearly heard him and kissed his cheeks.

“Because of _your_ undying love for me.”

“Oh, so it’s my mistake, now? Thank you, love. Let me jog your memory, dear: _You_ were the one who asked _me_ to marry _you_.”

Suddenly, Hermione and Theo walked in – the Slytherin having brought Hermione to her doctor’s appointment. It was already month six and she was really looking forward to finally having a little girl running around.

“What is going on here?” Hermione asked smirking and looked around the room.

Harry was just about to answer that Draco was telling everyone to look for Narnia, when his fiancé jumped in and turned to Hermione.

Grinning from ear to ear, Draco replied. “We’re playing rock-paper-scissors for our marriage.”

“No we’re not!”

“Yes, we are. Seamus” Draco turned to the other Gryffindor, still grinning. “Be my witness. We _are_ playing rock-paper-scissors for our marriage, right?”

Seamus looked from Harry to Draco and then to Hermione, suddenly grinning as well. “They’ve got two points each. The next point decides when they’re getting married and who has to plan everything.”

Harry shook his head, a little frustrated. “We. Are. Not. Playing! Come on!”

Unfortunately, with another Slytherin in the room, Harry couldn’t really convince the others that they weren’t playing said game. Hermione simply looked at him in sympathy and chuckled.

“Draco, I hate you for this.”

“I did not set the conditions, love. That was Seamus” Draco answered still grinning.

Sighing, Harry put his hand behind his back. He made sure that there was no one standing behind him and that there wasn’t anything mirroring his movements. Well, what would Draco choose? Paper always seemed to be something Draco hated. If he could, he always tried to go around it. Scissors... maybe. He usually chose rock. However, if he was trying to prank him, he would probably choose scissors and beat Harry’s paper.

They both counted and presented their choice finally. “Rock-paper-scissors…”

Harry stared at Draco’s hand which covered Harry’s. His fiancé had chosen paper and outplayed him. “You bastard knew I was trying to beat you!”

“That’s the game, love!”

Harry shook his head and raised his eyebrows. “Got it. You know what? For the next two weeks, we’ll play rock-paper-scissors for sex. I hope you’re just as successful, darling.”

Draco was lost for words for a second, before trying to stop Harry who was leaving the room, shaking his head. He left Draco to finishing dinner and sat down in the living room, smirking to himself.

Theo walked in behind him and shook his head. “You do realize that you’re punishing yourself with that?”

Harry laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I do not plan on going a full two weeks with said game. I just want to teach him a lesson.”

“With sex?”

“With_out_ sex” Harry answered grinning.

Theo laughed and shook his head. “You two are a different brand of crazy.”

Harry silently agreed and when Hermione walked in and sat down next to Theo, placing her head on his shoulders, he smiled at the two of them.

There wasn’t anything you could say, as the door was suddenly violently opened and Tracey walked in. She looked furious and frowned at everyone sitting in the living room.

“Tracey? Everything okay?” Harry asked and noticed, how she pressed her lips together.

She sighed and finally decided to talk. “It’s not a beautiful day and nothing is okay!”

Harry frowned and looked at Theo and Hermione, both just as surprised as he was. “Why?”

“I can’t stop rhyming and I fucking hate my timing.”

Hermione sat up straight and frowned. “Why can’t you stop rhyming?”

“I don’t know; on mountains there’s snow.”

Her wild look of complete exasperation, especially with the last part that she clearly hadn’t intended to use, was proving it difficult for Harry not to burst out laughing. He was, however, under no circumstances going to laugh at her!

Instead, he raised his eyebrows and looked into the kitchen. “Draco!”

Draco didn’t appear, but called out for Harry as well. Harry made his fiancé come to him though and pointed towards Tracey. “Did you give her something?”

“Like what?” The Slytherin frowned into her direction and turned back to Harry. “She looks normal.”

“Do you think it’s normal to rhyme?! I just want some fucking peace…time!”

Draco stopped dead in his tracks, one hand raised, pointing his fingers at her, before he turned back to his fiancé. “She’s rhyming?”

“Yes. Any idea how to counteract that?”

Draco shook his head. “Before you think it was me… I would never do something like that!”

Hermione smirked a little, but was smiling at Tracey again. “Don’t worry, Tracey, we’ll work on it.”

“Please know I asked, I want you to do it fast!”

Draco visibly bit back his laughter and turned to the kitchen, calling Dean and Seamus into the living room. Harry was sure, Theo had seen his fiancé trying his hardest not to laugh. However, other people were too taken away by Tracey wanting to talk like a normal human being again, that they clearly hadn’t seen it.

“Dean, Seamus, do you know anything about that?” He pointed at Tracey, who was rolling her eyes.

Seamus grinned. “Yes, we’ve seen Tracey around the house, mate. Did you not know she lived here?”

“He’s talking about something else” Harry pitched in and watched the two Gryffindors closely. It was obvious that the two of them had something to do with the rhyme machine in their house.

“You two are the worst, I’ll have you cursed.”

Dean smirked. “Kind of hard to curse someone if you can only talk in rhymes!” he noted.

Tracey now seemed to be extremely angry and if Seamus (or Dean as a matter of fact) was the person to freak out, when being stared into the ground… that would have happened right now.

“I’ll throw you to Kuwait! Tonight, I have a date!”

Dean and Seamus snickered, Theo and Hermione (followed by Draco) tried their hardest not to join in.

Once Seamus had calmed down, he turned to Tracy, quite obviously trying to make her even angrier. “You know, for ‘date’, I would have used the rhyme ‘mastur’…”

“Dean, Seamus!” Harry interrupted Seamus and rolled his eyes. “Is there something to counteract that? If you say no, I’ll hex you into a similar position and throw you out into the Muggle world for a night out!”

Seamus just wanted to answer him – with his sparkling eyes clearly not about to back down – when Dean pulled out a flask.

“It’ll keep going for about ten minutes. After that you should be able to talk normally.”

“Dean!” Seamus rolled his eyes, visibly unhappy that his prank had been stopped.

Dean on the other hand, simply shrugged his shoulder. “If you would have gone on a date with me, while rhyming, I would have never accepted another date, Shay.”

Tracey gulped down the content, glaring at Seamus again and left the room. Not before calling Seamus an idiot while rhyming. “You’re a piece of work, you fucking jerk!”

Harry looked over to Dean and Seamus raising his eyebrows. “Guys?”

“Harry?” Seamus asked grinning.

Instead of Harry, Draco started talking and rolled his eyes. “Don’t play pranks against people in this house!”

“That wasn’t in the house rules!” Dean answered.

“It’s a new house rule, just for you two.”

Seamus pointed towards Theo. “Since Theo doesn’t live in the house, can we play pranks on him?”

“No!” Hermione called out. “I need him to take care of me! You can play pranks on Harry.”

“I already have a wedding to prepare, Hermione! Because of Seamus and Dean! I think you guys played enough pranks for a while.”

Everyone started laughing and Harry rolled his eyes. He did get a kiss from his fiancé and chuckled as well. Finally, once people stopped laughing, Hermione explained to everyone that her intention was to move into Theo’s apartment as soon as her divorce was finalized, which would only take a few more weeks. The people inside the living room congratulated the two of them and Theo blushed slightly. He excused himself shortly after that, explaining that he was cleaning the apartment – there was a lot of ancient magic left over and he had no intent in bringing a child into such an environment. There were apparently some specialists coming over in an hour and he wanted everything to be as clean as possible.

Hermione excused herself as well, heading up towards the library most likely. Under her hands, said library had gained a lot of books about how to deal with dramatic situations, helpful life books and general magic books. 

Heading back to the kitchen to finish dinner, Harry stopped dead in his tracks, when he noticed an animal on the kitchen floor.

“Why is there a penguin in the kitchen?” Harry wondered out loud and looked at the black and white animal which slowly walked closer towards him. Either curiously… or about to strike a deadly blow…

Neville rushed by Harry and grabbed the penguin. “Sorry, Harry. I bought him and I kind of misplaced him in the house.”

Shaking his head, Harry frowned. “It’s… It’s a penguin… How can you _misplace_ a freaking penguin?!”

“He walked off!”

Harry stared at Neville and simply took in the bizarre scene in front of him, before he burst out laughing. “Okay Neville. What’s his name? And how will you care for him?”

“His name’s Otto and I already changed the temperature in my room so that he can live there happily” Neville explained looking really happy. Harry was not going to argue with that, his friend hadn’t looked this happy with his life for a long time.

Suddenly, the door opened and Draco walked in, stopping dead in his tracks when his eyes fell on the penguin and Neville who was holding it closely. Harry watched his fiancé going through some thoughts, before he shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“You know what? I’m not even going to question it anymore. It’s a house of Gryffindor freaks, it can happen that there’s a penguin in the kitchen…” Draco said, calmly walked to the fridge, still eyeing the penguin, before grabbing a soda and walking towards Harry, shaking his head.

Harry chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Well darling, before a house full of Gryffindor freaks, it was a house full of Slytherin freaks.”

Draco smirked. “Do you see me deny that?”

When Harry looked back at his friend, Neville was still holding onto the penguin and Harry was quite sure that maybe said animal represented something different than just having an animal. Maybe it had something to do with his grandmother having died. However, Harry still felt as if it was too early to talk to him about it. He remembered that he also didn’t want to talk to anyone when Sirius died. If he could have gotten a dog or a cat, he would have definitely gotten it and kept it close at all times. Maybe the penguin was something like a support animal.

“Oh, Neville just promise me not to get any kind of predator animal, such as a lion, a panther or a camel” Draco smirked.

Harry chuckled. “Camel’s aren’t predator animals, Dray.”

“They are way too huge to be prey, Harry!”

“As are giraffes! Who would want to eat a neck with basically no flesh? It’s about seven feet long!”

“I would eat your neck” Draco winked at him and exited the room again. Harry shook his head, but couldn’t wipe the smirk from his face.

Neville was now sitting on the floor, grinning from ear to ear. “The two of you are amazing. How did you never realize at Hogwarts that you had a thing for each other?”

Harry grinned and conjured some ice and snow for the penguin to play in, which it actually started doing. Neville watched gleefully as his animal friend jumped around on the icy ground. He then sat down next to Neville and watched the black and white creature as well.

“I actually think that we had a connection with each other at Hogwarts. We couldn’t stay away from each other. And we were bickering then as well.”

The other Gryffindor laughed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it bickering, Harry. The two of you are more bantering or teasing. And I have never seen it like this, honestly.”

The doorbell sounded, but since Tracey was waiting for a date and there were a lot of others around the house, Harry decided to sit next to Neville and watch his pet penguin enjoying the conjured snow.

For some reason, Neville brought the discussion to Harry’s clothes for Animagi. He had spent the last month trying to figure out the clothes situation, almost going as far as pissing Draco off, who was about done having to transform into his Animagus ferret again and again…

“I think you’re trying too much to think of the clothes as clothes” Neville finally said and scratched his scruff. “You’ve tried cotton, even bamboo, right?”

Nodding, Harry silently agreed with him. Neville took a small booklet out of his pants pocket. “There’s a rare plant called Mulabis. It’s growing in Egypt and can adapt to all climates and places to grow. Grandma had a small pot, which she gave me before she died.”

Harry was silent, for a few reasons now. The very first was that he had no idea how to react. The other reasons included his happiness that he could figure out a problem and the third was simply his complete surprise that Neville was maybe offering him this plant.

“I’ll give you the leaves, if you leave me the roots.”

“Deal!”

Neville grabbed his penguin and walked back upstairs, which left Harry alone in the kitchen. He stood up and finished the salad, which everyone seemed to have forgotten about. Dinner was also over quite fast, everyone having different things to do and places to be. Which left Harry to clean the table and the kitchen. He didn’t much care and was done rather quickly with no disturbances from any Slytherins (or Gryffindors)… or penguins.

While everyone was busy, Harry’s gaze suddenly flickered to a plate at the other side of the kitchen. It was rusty, several years old and had the names ‘Dray’ (Harry’s nickname for Draco. Everyone else who had used it, had earned glaring gazed from Harry and Draco), ‘Hay’ (which Draco wrote after Harry had called him ‘Dray’ for the first time. Luckily, his name didn’t stick long), ‘Blay’ (that was actually Blaise who wrote it, just to be part of a new movement, which he had seen… This name also didn’t stick around), ‘Pan’ (Harry remembered her rolling her eyes, when Draco wrote it, because they had watched Disney’s Peter Pan a few days prior) and ‘Thor’ (Theo was super proud of this name, even though Harry had tried to get him to write Theoy).

Underneath all the names, there were different dates. The dates were predictions of when the public would find out what Harry was doing with his home. Not that he was hiding the Snakes and now Lions and Eagles that were walking in and staying at Grimmauld Place… However, he was also not telling everyone.

Harry had guessed two weeks. Of course he had been wrong, when had he ever predicted anything correctly?! He hadn’t even gotten anything right at Hogwarts. Blay and Pan also weren’t that good with Blaise guessing a year and Pansy fifteen months. The only people still in the race were Thor and Dray. Dray guessing about six years and ten months and the superhero standing by seven years and four months.

This board has been found, forgotten, ignored and found again. Treasured, broken, lost and forgotten, when found again. Cursed, fought with, hated, forgotten and found again. And now its place was in the kitchen, where you would see it every day but also start to ignore it again.

Chuckling, Harry sat down at the table and yawned. He took out the small notepad he had in his pocket and opened it to the page, where he was planning the wedding. Truth be told, Draco had had so much to do in his apothecary that not even with the help of all his friends had he gotten any free time. So Harry had already started to plan the wedding. Not everything, since he wanted Draco to have a say.

When he read over the notes he had done, he smirked and crossed some things out, made reservations to a place and wrote a short letter for a Wizarding wedding band, before walking out of the kitchen.

In the living room, Draco sat at the chess table with Dean, when Padma and Parvati walked in. Seamus was trying to help Dean, while Draco had cast a spell against Seamus so he wouldn’t be able to talk for the third time now. Harry smiled at the girls and decided to get up greeting them again. He hadn’t seen them ever since breakfast and he was sure that they needed a little time for themselves. 

“How are you doing?”

Padma smiled at him. “Good, thank you. We just don’t know what else to do now.”

Harry nodded. “You could talk to Hermione; she knows a few attorneys. She’s going through a messy divorce as well. Maybe she can help you, if you want to.”

Parvati bit her lower lip and shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not _that_ bad. I don’t need a divorce, honestly.”

Padma shook her head and turned to her sister, frowning. “Ti, you need to do something! That jerk has been hitting you ever since you married him! He doesn’t deserve you.”

Harry placed a hand on Padma’s shoulder, before turning to Parvati. “I think we need to talk in private, Parvati. But I don’t want to talk you into something.” Harry felt as if he had to explain more about his childhood, but Parvati seemed to be willing to listen.

And so the two of them walked into the small office next to the staircase, which Draco used to do bills and whatever else he was doing.

Parvati sat down on the sofa and Harry leaned on the wooden desk, placed in the middle of the room. “I don’t usually talk about it, Parvati, but I think it’s important for you to know.” Since the other Gryffindor stayed silent, Harry continued talking. “All my childhood, before I got to Hogwarts, my aunt and uncle hit me. I always thought that it was their way of showing me their love. My weird child brain believed that this was the only way that they could show that they cared for me. Love can do this to you. We humans are weird that way.”

“But I know that he loves me! He tells me that and I know he feels terrible for hitting me, he even apologized” Parvati bit her lower lip, wringing her hands and Harry saw her fighting the tears.

Honestly, Harry had never had a situation like this. The only people that knew the full extent of what happened during his childhood were Draco, Theo and Pansy. He had broken down in front of them during dinner, when there were too many details that resembled his childhood and spent the entire night talking about what had happened to him. Not even Hermione and Ron knew everything. This now was something different.

Harry sighed. “I also thought that they loved me, Parvati. Only now that I am with the one person who loves me _unconditionally_, do I know what love actually means. It does not mean being beaten or threatened. Being scared of your husband or wife isn’t something that should be part of a marriage.”

Parvati bit her lower lip and was apparently not sure whether she should say something, so Harry continued smiling at her. “I don’t want to talk you into leaving him, Parvati. I just want you to see the bigger picture. If you want, you can crash here whenever you want to.”

He stayed in the room for a while, but decided to leave her to her thoughts and left the room. As soon as he re-entered the living room, the fire place sounded and Theo walked out, being surprised at all the people inside (or pretending to be).

“Hello everyone! I’m back! And I brought chocolate.”

“Fuck you, Theo!” Draco exclaimed, still looking at the chess board, while Harry burst out laughing. Well, everyone did except Padma, who was a little surprised at why this was funny and why Draco would curse Theo for something like that.

Seamus seemed to take pity on her and explained what had happened a few weeks prior to their arrival. Draco only rolled his eyes at them and concentrated on the chess game, which he appeared to be losing. Padma laughed loudly when she heard about the owl-Armageddon in their house.

Harry sat down on the couch and closed his eyes. He always relaxed the best in their house, even if they were all completely crazy and it was so loud you had to scream to be heard. He loved his crazy home.

As if everyone had decided to visit Grimmauld Place at the same time, Parvati came back into the living room, Neville and Hermione followed as well and even Greg, Ginny and Pansy (followed by Tracey) flooed in.

Dean and Draco stopped playing chess in favor of a community game and they all spent their evening playing crazy games that were exactly what people needed or loved. It also worked perfectly for their crazy family.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kudos and comments! I hope you've enjoyed this story!

> Grimmauld Place 12 – A Place for restless souls  
by Luna Lovegood
> 
> As most people who know the Savior are aware of the fact that Harry Potter, our Golden Boy, has transformed his house, Grimmauld Place 12, into a sanctuary for people in need of a place to stay. This happened about six years ago, when he first got together with no other than Draco Malfoy, a name which we all know too well. However, if you have visited Grimmauld Place as of recently, you would be surprised at everyone’s level of friendliness.
> 
> It all started with a few Slytherins having no place in a world after Voldemort’s death. Being Slytherin wasn’t too easy and Malfoy was aware of this problem. He went out looking for his childhood friends, brought them to his home and employed them in his apothecary. What started out as a Slytherin sanctuary quickly became a second home for a lot more people, looking for a place to stay.
> 
> ‘I was lost, before I went to stay with Harry and Draco’, Blaise Zabini explained. ‘With their help, I found a reason to live again. I’m currently in a very happy relationship and we’re building our future together. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for the two of them.’
> 
> And Zabini isn’t the only one with such a success story. Gryffindor Neville Longbottom moved into the house a few months ago. ‘I didn’t know where to live after my grandmother died. I had heard a rumor about Harry’s house and decided to ask if I could stay there. They immediately agreed and I actually found one of my now best friends there.’
> 
> Currently, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are housing four Gryffindors, one Ravenclaw and one Slytherin, but this picture had been different a few months ago and it is constantly changing, which Potter confirmed. ‘It’s always different. A few months ago, we had as many Gryffindors here as we had Slytherins. There are also people who stay over for two nights and are gone then. Others stay for a year or more. Our principle is easy: You may stay as long as you need to.’
> 
> And people tend to do so. With people going through a divorce to someone fighting for their voice and others already looking for an apartment, Grimmauld Place 12 seems to be home for restless souls of unfair treatments and new starts.
> 
> However, not only the guests seem to be on their paths to change things, as Potter has recently announced to launch a clothing line for Animagi which will transform with them into their animal and back. Rumor has it the Ministry has already placed an order of two hundred pieces of clothing. This still has to be confirmed by the head of the house.
> 
> Nevertheless, we wish everyone in this house all the best and may Grimmald Place 12 be the home for many more help seeking souls and survivors of bad times.

The bells were ringing and Draco was nowhere to be seen. Harry sighed and shook his head. Of course the only time Draco was late, would be their wedding. He snuck through the garden, no one seemed to hear or see him. Well, Pansy did, but she only winked at him, which made him roll his eyes again.

Once he was in the house and closed the door towards the garden, Harry listened for something. “Draco?!” he called out.

“Living room!”

Frowning, Harry entered the living room, unsure why Draco would choose to stay in the house _when they were supposed to get married right now_. The picture inside said room was a little funny. Well, nothing was out of place, except for a very well dressed Draco Malfoy. This handsome gentleman stood on the table, looking at the floor.

Harry leaned at the door frame and smirked. “Interesting choice, love. Should we get married on top of the table here?”

“What? No!” Draco rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “What are you doing here, anyway? Aren’t we supposed to get married now?”

Harry burst out laughing and nodded. “Yes, love! That’s why I’m here. We were supposed to get married and you were a no show. Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s not polite to leave your guests waiting?”

Before Draco could answer or Harry could ask another silly question, Narcissa appeared behind Harry and answered his question rather quickly. “Yes, she did.”

Turning around, Harry smiled at his future mother-in-law and turned back to Draco, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, darling?”

“It’s all a lie.”

“Well, that’s not nice, dragon” Narcissa answered and Harry detected a faint sparkle in her eyes. Before he could warn Draco, she continued. “You shouldn’t tell the man you’re supposed to marry right now that your whole relationship has been a lie! Honestly, Draco!”

Draco seemed way out of his comfort zone and if something hadn’t kept him on the table, he would have probably launched himself at his mother, trying to make her stop talking. Or well, told his mother in the nicest way possible to shut up.

“Well, I’ll go and tell everyone the news” Narcissa smirked and turned around. Before she walked out, she whispered to Harry: “Check for spiders around the table.”

Harry had already known that there was most likely a spider terrorizing his future husband, but he had enjoyed pretending not to notice his frantic looks around the room. Maybe Narcissa was right, they had been letting their guests wait a little long.

“Love, where’s the spider?” Harry asked grinning.

Draco seemed rather relieved and pointed to the edge of the table right in front of him. “It walked right under the table. I don’t know where it is right now.”

Harry walked closer, looking under the table and found the smallest of spiders, trying to be invisible on the wooden floor. He grabbed it and held it between his closed hands, so Draco wouldn’t freak out even more.

He threw the spider out of the window and held out his hand for his man to take it and pulled him from the table. “You lost the bet by the way, Dray.” With Draco’s confused look, Harry elaborated what he meant. “Didn’t we bet that the other person would be late to our wedding? And guess what: I was on time.”

Draco rolled his eyes and grinned then. “Well, I won the newspaper bet. However, Harry – I think we’ve stalled the wedding long enough. Let’s go!”

They appeared in front of everyone, Narcissa smirking at them. The wedding part was over rather quickly. They were celebrating in their garden, because the place Harry had booked hadn’t been good enough for Draco. They had had a few discussions, which had scared everyone in the house, since they could end up rather violently.  
Neville had called for Theo at one point and the Slytherin had appeared within seconds and could calm both, Harry and Draco, down. At another point, Draco had decided that the other place actually was a good idea to get married, but Harry had already told them that he didn’t want the place, which started another discussion that could only be solved by Pansy and Ginny coming by and talking sense into both men. And the third problem had been so huge that Harry had refused to talk to Draco for an entire week (well, Draco also had refused to get down from his high horse). It had taken the collective effort of everyone who had ever lived in the house to get them to talk again. The issue had been the colors of the napkins.

In the end, they had decided to stay home and keep their wedding simple. All their friends had been invited and a few other guests. Luna was allowed to write about the wedding, which was going to book her career as there were no other newspapers allowed.

Right now, Theo stood up and got ready for his speech. Harry was already dreading the speeches from their friends. They were definitely going to be interesting…

“Welcome everyone! Who would have thought that one day, we would all be here for these two?” He pointed at Draco and Harry. “Well, I certainly did. Draco had always talked about Harry all day long ever since I had known him, so no surprise there.”

Draco was hiding his face in his hands and shook his head. “I’ll kill him.”

Harry grinned. “Well, love. I have a feeling, I’m going to help you with it.”

While his husband looked up, Theo continued and confirmed Harry’s suspicions. “From what I’ve heard from my lovely girlfriend, Harry had been talking about Draco as well all the time. He had apparently also started stalking our friend and followed him everywhere!”

“While he was in a relationship with me!” Ginny called from her seat and people started laughing.

Harry leaned back in his chair and turned to Draco. “You know what? Why don’t we just poison the cake, that way all our problems of today will be dealt with?”

“Good idea, love” Draco smirked, but got interrupted by his mother.

“That would be cruel, dear” she smiled at the two men and Harry only sighed and turned back to Theo, who was a far cry from ending his speech.

In fact, it looked as if Ginny’s comment had made him even more talkative. And after about five minutes, he finally decided to end his babbling (in which he listed the best moments in their house and lives). “Well, I don’t want to take all your time. I just want to thank you two. Honestly, you work together perfectly and without you, I don’t think I would have gotten back on my feet. I think, a lot of people here feel the same. I wish you just the best for the future and a lot of happy moments together.”

The next few speeches were held by Hermione, Narcissa and Tracey. All of those were lovely and Harry was happy to have such amazing people in his life.

However, the next speech was from Greg, who was pretty obviously in a relationship with Tracey. Before he started speaking, he pointed to the chocolate fountain in the middle of the garden and decided to tell the story of Draco ordering twenty pounds of chocolate. Most people already knew the story, but those who didn’t were taken aback.

Funnily enough, Draco hadn’t even told his mother what he had done and she laughed the loudest, when Greg talked about Harry basically running away from the owl invasion and going to buy chocolate just to irk Draco. Richard was obviously completely surprised by all of this, but laughed along with everyone else.

“So” Greg finished his explanation. “As you can see, Harry will always be there if Draco gets into trouble.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but was smirking, while Draco angrily looked at his childhood friend. Before anybody else could say anything after Greg’s speech, Harry got up and decided to answer the speech before his.

“Well, thank you Greg for making me look just very helpful. I think I should say something right now.” Turning to Draco, he smiled. “I will always be there for you and for all your craziness and before you say something, I know I’m crazy as well. We wouldn’t work this well together if I wasn’t.” People were laughing and Draco smirked. “I just want you to know that sometimes I might go away, because I think that you run into trouble with your head first and I am convinced that you need to deal with it alone. But” he paused and smiled at Draco. “I will always be there to clean shit up.”

When he sat down, Draco kissed him, while people were laughing loudly. Most likely because they knew Harry had helped Draco clean the kitchen after the owl disaster.

The next speeches were just as crazy and full of love, from Blaise, George and Angelina and even Richard made a speech about how happy he was for them.

Harry smiled at Draco, when all the craziness was over and people were talking, laughing and eating happily. He knew he had made the right choice. And with the newspaper article, there were probably even more people coming to live with them. They could help even more and even though Draco didn’t really need to be helping anyone to be happy, he knew that Harry’s character would be hurt if he couldn’t help anymore.

Over the next few hours, way passed the time when the sun had left the sky, the people enjoyed the festivities and congratulated the pair. However, once the moon was on its highest point of the night, only a handful of people were left. Hermione and Theo sat on a table alone, talking quietly. Blaise and Dudley were just about to bid goodbye, while Narcissa and Richard had started to clean the tables. Ginny and Pansy were still eating the buffet table empty and Neville had just sat down next to Theo and Hermione.

Harry lay on the grass, looking up into the sky, when Draco came into view and sat down next to him.

“How are you doing, love?”

Smiling, Harry turned his head and kissed Draco’s hand. “Very good. I can’t believe we’re actually married! Never in my wildest dreams had I even dared to dream of getting to marry you.”

“Really?” Draco grinned. “I had about three hundred different scenarios of our marriage in my head.”

“And which one was it, today?” Harry chuckled and smiled, when Draco lay down beside him.

“Three hundred and one.”

Harry nodded quietly, before turning to face him once again. “And which one do you like the most?”

“Three hundred and one.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Draco laughed and kissed him. “Well, I love this one the most, because all the others were just imagination and this one is real.”


	11. And here's the Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was allowed to use the first part from an idea from Neakco (thank you!). And I just wrote a little bit more, since I realised I never finished Hermione's story and this is one of my favorite subplots :)
> 
> Thank you for all your comments and kudos! This story is one of my favorite, with the Humor going on in here. This chapter is just very small and it still takes place at Harry and Draco's wedding, so an imidiate follow-up to the last chapter.

While Harry and Draco lied beside each other looking at the sky, which was about to turn into night, Harry thought about their wedding day. It was perfect. Just perfect. Suddenly, a loud noise from the neighboring garden which sounded like a loud bark interrupted their discussion and Harry smirked slightly. He sat up next to his husband. Draco frowned and raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

Harry laughed. “Aren’t you going to tell me that the neighbor is a werewolf, since there was a bark now and I clearly heard it as well?”

Draco shook his head, looking very serious. “Harry, have you looked at the moon, darling? How can there be a werewolf with no full moon?!”

Laughing loudly, Harry put an arm around his husband and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Draco.”

Before Draco could have said anything, Hermione appeared in front of the two of them and looked a little distressed. Harry looked at her and got up quickly. “Are you okay, Hermione? Is it the baby?”

“What?” Hermione looked surprised, but shook her head quickly. “No. But I need to go home, now! Theo let it sound as if he was going to propose now. And this is supposed to be your day…”

Draco grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we already had our day. And Theo asked whether or not I’d kill him if he’d do it today.”

Harry shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. “And what about me? Do I get to have a say in this?”

“No.”

Draco had this glint in his eye and Harry started to laugh loudly. He got up and helped his husband to his feet. “Apparently, ‘Mione, I can’t say anything and Draco has quite possibly told your boyfriend he could propose to you today…”

His best friend smiled softly. Within a second, Theo stood in front of them with a whole Treacle Tart in his hands. Harry eyed it curiously and wondering if Theo had put the ring inside it, when the Slytherin presented it to him.

“Harry, I know Draco didn’t ask you, if I could ask Hermione today whether or…” Theo started, but before he could finish his planned speech, Harry grabbed the tart and interrupted him.

“Don’t waste your breath on me, Theo. You know as well as anybody else that I will say yes to anything if I’m being bribed by Treacle Tart. You have my blessing.” He winked at him and sat down by a table, where Draco joined him shortly, with two forks in his hand and a smile on his lips.

Suddenly, everyone was quiet and Harry looked at Theo to see him on his knee and Hermione with tears in her eyes. The Slytherin smiled up at her and Harry remembered how Draco had looked at him almost exactly like that (minus the ring, which he was sure to remind Draco as often as he could now that they were married).

“Hermione Jean Granger. Will you make me the happiest person alive and be my wife? I promise to always take care of you and your child and to…”

He was interrupted once again. Though now it was by Ginny yelling over from the buffet: “You’re merging wedding speeches and proposal speeches, Nott!”

Hermione laughed, though it just seemed to be quick outburst of pure happiness, when she looked back at the Slytherin on his knee, she nodded. “Yes!”

Harry cheered along with everyone else and Draco jumped up and walked over to the newly engaged pair and congratulated them. Getting up, Harry followed his husband’s example. However, when he reached his best friend, she suddenly looked up in some emotion that was mixed with surprise, fear and embarrassment.

“Guys… I think my water just broke…”


End file.
